


Looking Glass World or The Bright Line Between Then and Now

by debwalsh



Category: Primeval, Primeval: New World
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, Gen, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3102056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened after “Sound of Thunder Part 2”?  This story attempts to start answering that question.  When anomaly team from Cross Photonics makes it back through the anomaly, they find that the world has changed, irrevocably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. June 9, 2012

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after the finale aired, intending to include it in a multimedia zine I was planning to publish. Well, the zine ain't happening, and I happen to like this story a lot, so it made sense to post it here for folks to read. I do have ideas for a sequel, but I can't promise I'll write it - Steve and Bucky are keeping me too busy these days. But, after reading through this to clean it up a bit, I find I'm really missing the team from Cross Photonics ... so who knows?

Reality fractured, glittering, folding in on itself and splintering apart in the next heartbeat. As he and Dylan raced toward the anomaly, air burned Evan Cross’s lungs as though they were traversing the blazing cold of space and not the sylvan glade of the anomaly spaghetti junction. Around them, anomalies winked in and out of existence with violent in-drawn whooshes of air and exhaled concussive waves that buffeted them as they ran. 

A few feet ahead, the air shimmered like heat rising, a halo flickering around the anomaly pointed to home. The anomaly itself pulsed, the fractal pattern contracting and expanding. Without checking his anomaly detector, he knew the anomaly’s collapse was imminent.

Only seconds had passed since they’d first noticed the anomalies suddenly closing, first realized that something catastrophic had happened on the other side of the anomaly in that basement six years earlier. That basement where Brooke died, and where he’d just sent the man who’d become his friend, sent him to die so he could live. 

Could it have been something as small as the fact that the Mac Rendell who passed through the anomaly was different from the man who’d saved his life six years ago in his time stream?

Or something more?

Whatever it was, the anomaly was imploding, and they were still several feet away.

He shouted, “Come on!” to Dylan and grabbed her wrist to sling-shot her through the anomaly, vaulting toward the diminishing miracle of physics like he was back in high school track.

He landed with a thump and a slide on the scarred wooden floor of the refinery warehouse on the other side, skidding to a halt at the feet of a man. In civilian shoes, not military issue, so not Leeds, Evan noted dully as he struggled to haul himself to his feet.

“Evan!” called Dylan urgently. He heard her clattering toward him, heard the snap of assault weapons raised to fire, safeties flicked off in unison.

“At ease, boys,” he heard a familiar voice say sardonically, and Evan Cross closed his eyes in horror. “Very nice to see you again at last, Ms. Weir,” the voice added genially. Then the order, “Let’s lock it down.”

“Sir,” answered someone beyond Evan’s view; Leeds! Then a couple of military types moved forward with a device on a tripod and aimed it toward the anomaly. Evan craned to look over his shoulder toward the anomaly, still not willing to look up at the man giving orders. That’s when he saw him.

“No, don’t! Wait!” he cried desperately, arm shooting out toward the anomaly.

Mac breathlessly tumbled through the spinning shards of the anomaly’s physical expression in this dimension, collapsing into a heaving heap inches away.

Everyone waited a beat, two, three after Mac’s splatworthy entrance. Then the voice announced, “Okay. Nice to see you, Mac Rendell. And now – the band is back together! We’re done here. Lock it up. And get off the floor, Cross – you and I are long overdue for a chat. Just remember – you’re _wel_ come!”

Evan Cross rolled over onto his back groaning, and looked up into his worst nightmare. Howard Kanan was in charge of a military contingent guarding the anomaly. An anomaly that was now somehow contained in what looked like a pocket universe of its own, a sphere of defined edges and measurable energy. The world he’d known had changed. But God, how?

&&&

Mac Rendell, Dylan Weir, and Evan Cross were all helped to their feet and allowed a brief but heartfelt reunion of hugs and tears. Evan eyed the condensed anomaly warily, but Howard said something about locking it down until the event passed, at which time the whole thing would dissipate naturally. Mac kept watching Howard in a weird way, frowning mightily in that broody way of his, but he didn’t say anything. Evan still wasn’t convinced that closing, or rather locking, the anomaly was a good idea, but Howard closed the subject by walking away. Dylan gave both Evan and Mac another round of hugs just on principle.

They were then accompanied out of the refinery building at Brittania Mine, and into the dusty loading area toward their vehicle, a black late model SUV. None of the trailers or big trucks were anywhere to be seen. Neither was the medical unit. The only vehicles in the yard were a troop truck and a couple of cars. He saw Lieutenant Leeds over by the troop truck, giving orders, and looking in command. Leeds glanced toward him and gave him a sketchy salute, then went back to his team.

Howard came up behind him, and clapped Evan on the shoulder asking, “Think you’re up to driving back to the shop? Or would you like me to have one of the guys drive you? I’m sure you three have got just tons to talk about.” He paused, grinning. “After all, you’ve traveled _so far_ ,” he added in a baiting tone. 

Evan stood to the side of the driver’s side door and regarded Howard Kanan sourly. Arm draped across the upper edge of the car door, Evan pursed his lips and shook his head. “I think I can drive.”

“Sure you remember the way?”

“You’re enjoying this way too much, Howard.” Evan stared at him for a long moment and grimaced. “Don’t be an ass – you did something, and now the world’s changed. You know it, and I know it. It’s beyond irresponsible, Howard. I don’t see what you’re so pleased with yourself about.”

“Just you wait. The place has changed a _bit_ – and just remember we’ve got a contract. Ironclad. No take-backs.” Chuckling, Howard turned then paused, was silent for a moment, and then turned back to ask, “But hey, where did you get the cool gear?”

“Gear? Oh,” Evan snickered, taking in the black protective gear he and Dylan wore. “You call yourself Canadian? Seriously, man?”

“Ah. Hockey gear. Of course.”

“Adapted and with a few refinements of our own design.” 

Dylan slapped him on the arm and grinned from ear to ear, adding, “Got some new ideas, too.”

“Cool, I like it. We’ll adapt. And it really is nice to see you again, Ms. Weir,” he added with a genuine-looking smile. “You, too, Mac Rendell,” he said to Mac, who seemed even more freaked out. “Drive safe!” Howard wished them, pivoted on his heel, and strolled toward his own vehicle, waggling his fingers over his head in farewell. He paused to confer with Leeds, the lieutenant nodding several times while craning his neck to look up at Howard. Leeds was a compact guy while Howard was tall and rangy. Finally Howard clapped Leeds on the upper arm and slid into his car, while Leeds turned back to the troop transport and indicated to the driver to pull out.

“What an asshat,” Evan grumbled under his breath. “C’mon, get in – let’s go survey the damage,” he told the others, and Dylan and Mac got in the car, Mac in the front with Evan, Dylan in the back with the gear.

&&&

Howard Kanan pressed against the wall, breathing deeply to steady his nerves. This was the tipping point. He closed his eyes and focused on listening, willing the sounds, smells and sensations around him to become clearer, more intense. He immediately regretted it.

The scraping was the first thing he heard; the claws of the creature dragging across the floor, the dry rasp of its pads pressing against the tiles. The low rumble of its gastrointestinal system. He felt the thud of its passing shuddering up through his feet, rippling down his back as pressed against the wall. And the stench … carnivores of prehistoric times had a distinctive and decidedly nauseating bouquet that he’d never forger, try though he might. A stench that spoke of appetite, and terror, and primal anger – and rot. God, they stank. Somebody could have made a fortune with dino toothpaste back in the Cretaceous …

He shook his head and popped open his eyes … some things are _not_ better left to the imagination.

From the description Evan had given him that day in his lab, Howard was pretty sure he’d positioned himself correctly to head Brooke off and avoid a blood bath. If he could keep himself out of the path of that monster. He checked his gear one last time – anomaly detector, upgraded with his own tech contribution, an automatic weapon and ammunition that he’d appropriated from one of the military teams he’d found entering the past through the anomalies, and an time card from the time clock down the hall. He’d scrawled as much as he could think of on the card, and hoped it would be enough. One, two, three. Check, he was ready. Insane, but ready. For a brief moment he asked himself again why he was doing this, risking his own life, risking the future.

Because he’d looked into the abyss. And the abyss had looked back. His soul burned with the pain of a thousand screams. And this was his chance to silence it.

Just then the monster tore past his hiding place, hell-bent for the anomaly. What the hell? There was still no sign of Evan, and the damned thing was leaving. He left his hiding place and ran to follow it, saw it disappear through the anomaly. Had he gotten the time wrong? He was sure he hadn’t – hell, he’d overheard Evan talking to Dylan only a short while ago, confirming this was the day, and the clock was counting down to Brooke’s death. He blew out his breath in frustration and shrugged, returning to his hidey-hole. It would be back, and he definitely didn’t want to be in its way.

He took another steadying breath, tightening his grip on his weapon, and hunkered down to wait. He knew in his bones, this wasn’t over.

&&&

“So what just happened?” Dylan asked into the silence that had filled the car. She sat on the edge of the backseat, pressed up between the backs of the two front seats so she was nearly even with the men. Resting her arms on the top of the seat rests, she looked from one to the other, but the best she got out of either of them was a shrug.

She was an athletic young woman in her thirties, with long dirty blonde hair pulled back at the crown of her head. She’d spent most of her life in the outdoors, first on her parents’ ranch, and later as a predator control officer in Vancouver. She was comfortable in her own skin when she was outside, able to move, and she had an abiding love and empathy for animals. Put her in a formal situation or an office, and she’d be climbing the walls; people and structure made her nervous. Put her in the field, and she excelled. Her background made her uniquely suited for the makeshift team Evan Cross had formed, his Special Projects Group, his anomaly team. And what they’d endured together made them friends. There were moments when the three of them were more like siblings than colleagues.

Evan was driving down the highway away from the mine and toward Cross Photonics. Fast, but not too fast. His hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. A glance at his profile and Dylan knew he was too angry to talk – he was literally grinding his teeth! Tear trails stained his cheeks, cutting through the grime of another time. Dylan closed her eyes and sighed quietly. Of course they were. How could she have expected anything less?

&&&

He heard another sound then, a less frightening one, but one that put him on high alert. The soft footfalls coming down the hallway could only be Evan. And behind him before long would be Brooke.

Howard slid under the stairwell as Evan approached, willing himself to blend into the wall as the kid passed him by. He looked so young, so wide-eyed! God, it made his heart twist in his chest knowing what lay ahead for him – he’d been down that road, watching his wife die. He really wouldn’t wish such pain on anyone. Now Evan was in the next room, staring into the impossibility that was the anomaly. Howard heard his indrawn gasp, the subsequent click of a camera phone recording the event for posterity. Christ, what was humanity without the ability to record every frigging event digitally?

Then he heard her. Soft, tentative footfalls, a pause, a couple more steps forward, a slide, another pause. She was getting close, too close. The albertosaurus hadn’t returned through the anomaly yet, but he knew it was inevitable. Inevitable so long as no one interfered. As he was doing. As he had to. She was coming closer. The moment was coming closer.

He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a split second, and nodded his head once. “Okay,” he breathed to himself, clutching the weapon to his chest. “Go time.”

&&&

Evan heard Dylan speaking, felt her in the space between him and Mac. Knew she wanted to talk out what had happened inside the anomaly, explore his feelings, all that crap. He felt the tears sliding down his cheeks, but he didn’t dignify them by wiping them away.

He sucked in a breath through his nose and shifted his hand on the steering wheel, willing the blood to flow through his knuckles. He couldn’t loosen his grip or he’d lose his grip. He felt the madness spinning at the edge of his awareness like an anomaly ready to open in the road ahead. 

Brooke.

Brooke had been on the other side of that anomaly. He wanted to turn and ask Mac if he’d seen her, if he’d seen her … remains. He was afraid to hear his answer. So he drove, barely aware of the other vehicles on the road, following the path back to Cross Photonics on autopilot.

Damn, he’d been trying to let go for so long. Thought he almost had it there for a minute with Ange. Then the spaghetti junction had taken him back to 2006, back to the basement where he’d seen his first anomaly. To when and where Brooke had died, gone in a second when the albertosaurus had simply … eaten her. 

The thought still made bile flood up his throat. Still filled him with guilt. It didn’t matter what anyone told him, didn’t matter how he rationalized it. He couldn’t have known, couldn’t have foreseen what would happen when he followed that magnetic disturbance into that warehouse. And yet ever since then, Evan had been trying to atone for his sin. And knew he would never be able to achieve absolution.

And now … now he’d walked away from the opportunity to save her. He’d chosen time over Brooke. 

Did that action make his soul blacker? Damn him to a deeper hell? Could his hell be any deeper than it already was?

He didn’t know what was up with Mac, didn’t know how he’d managed to dodge that albertosaurus and get back through the anomaly. He didn’t know why Howard Kanan was waiting for him coming through the anomaly.

He did know that nothing would ever be the same. Except his guilt and his pain.

&&&

“Stay there,” he told her, shoving her into an unlocked room. “Just ‘til we get rid of that thing,” he added earnestly, nodding toward albertosaurus that was lumbering closer, its massive head turning from side to side as it tested the air for the scent of prey. When she’d come into this section of the building, he’d grabbed her, hand over her mouth, and told her there was something dangerous down the hall, something she needed to avoid. She’d been terrified of him, but he’d promised her he had no intention of hurting her. When he’d called her by name and told her he knew Evan, she’d relaxed slightly, but when she’d seen the dinosaur, she’d gone rigid in his arms. He’d promised her he’d protect her and Evan, but he could still see the fear in her eyes. 

Brooke nodded, her hand closing over his wrist. “Evan –“

“Next stop,” Howard promised her with a nod. “Don’t come out until he comes for you. Not ‘til Evan comes for you. _Promise me_ you won’t come out.”

She nodded warily, and he wondered if she’d honor the promise, or follow him as soon as he turned his back. He had to take the risk, the minutes were counting down to seconds now. She pulled the door closed and he laid his hand on the door and took another breath to steady his nerves. “Right,” he told himself, willing the trembling in his limbs to go away.

Quickly he moved back to the shelter of the stairwell, staying out of sight of the creature before it was drawn back to the anomaly. Some day, he’d figure out what it was – the magnetic pull of the event, or even a harmonic produced by it, but it seemed that all creatures eventually tried to return through the anomaly, unless they were somehow detained, or too slow to reach the fracture before it closed. And Stumpy Albert didn’t disappoint.

&&&

She glanced toward Mac, and found him in no better condition. He was gripping the arm rest on one side, the center console on the other. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slack. She suspected he might be in shock. 

Okay, so not going to get anything out of these guys for the time being at least. The silence was awkward and heavy, and strangely loud in the confined space.

She turned her attention to the road outside. Traffic was surprisingly heavy along here – she didn’t remember having to navigate quite so many SUVs and campers. Every so often, she noticed a military truck sitting idly at the side of the road. Just sitting there. It was odd enough to note, but not necessarily threatening. She assumed they were there for the public’s protection, probably had been set up as a fallback if they hadn’t been able to contain the albertosaurus. She shook her head and refocused on her partners.

Dylan had known them both for a relatively short period of time, less than a year. But it had been an intense period, and she was closer to these two men than anyone else in her life, other than her parents and her sister. 

If it hadn’t been for a Utahraptor – a dinosaur from the Cretaceous era – that had been trapped this side of an anomaly, she might never have known them at all. Her partner at Predator Control, Tony Drake, had been mauled and killed while checking up on the predator. What she hadn’t known about him then was that off-book, he was Evan Cross’s partner in anomaly hunting. And with Tony’s death, she’d found herself drawn into taking his place containing the ancient creatures unfortunate enough to find themselves in the present day. The day Tony died had changed her life irrevocably. She missed her old friend even now – he’d been a good man, a good mentor, and a great friend.

As for Evan Cross, he was a brilliant scientist, but one damaged with an obsession. An obsession that threatened to ruin his life if left unchecked. He’d used all his resources to find and contain the anomalies, and the creatures that wandered through them, and he’d just about drained his company dry in the process. He’d have lost Cross Photonics by now if it hadn’t been for the military involvement he hated so much. 

He was driven, obsessed, sometimes dangerously so. And he’d just had to confront the root of it all over again, facing the loss of his wife, and his own imagined complicity in it. She wondered what that would do to him, that loss, that realization. Would it make him even more dangerous? Or would Evan finally be able to come to terms with what happened, finally realizing there was nothing he could have done?

She had to admit that Evan was dangerously attractive, too. In his thirties, he was fit, handsome, devastatingly smart, and when he wasn’t in a black mood or depressed, he could be witty and charming and really quite sexy. She didn’t like to admit that she found him attractive, especially since he’d never expressed any interest in her, but it was hard not to notice the soulful blue eyes, tousled dark hair, or the ever-present and ever sexy five o’clock shadow. Not to mention his really extraordinary abs. And she didn’t even want to think about the muscles under that tight black t-shirt. No, she didn’t like to think about those qualities at all.

Mac was the younger and brasher of the two men. In his twenties, he was a native of East London who’d emigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia at Evan’s suggestion a couple of years earlier. Like Dylan, he was a fairly recent recruit to the SPG – Special Projects Group, but he’d known Evan for about six years. Their history was way more complicated than hers. Evan and Mac first met back at the anomaly where Evan’s wife had been killed – another Mac had come through the anomaly and had actually saved Evan but died himself. Back in 2006, Evan had made sure the body was preserved in ice, and went to London to let Mac’s family know what had happened to him. Evan didn’t realize then that the anomalies weren’t just portals in space – they were portals in time as well. When Evan arrived at the Rendell home, he’d found a younger version of his savior there, and had invited him to come to Canada to work for him, hoping that would prevent the future where Mac was killed. Mac had taken him up on the chance. And then he’d ultimately found himself drawn toward the anomalies after all.

And yet, Mac was here. Evan was here. She was here. And it was clear something had changed.

&&&

“Love, you gotta see this –“

Evan – young Evan – was standing there, staring into the anomaly, mouth hanging open. God, what a doofus. But he remembered the fascination, the mind-blowing potential of it, the seductive draw the first time he’d laid eyes on an anomaly, remembered how it had changed his life. And he could forgive a little rubbernecking, but that thing was going to be stomping toward the anomaly any second. 

“Cross, get your ass out of there!” Howard yelled, entering the room and flattening himself against the wall, out of the eyeline of the creature when it came through.

Evan whirled toward him, and then back toward the anomaly, just as someone else burst through, a dark-haired young guy in gray camouflage who tackled Cross and knocked him to the ground. Just then, Stumpy came roaring through, massive jaws missing both men by inches.

.

The ground vibrated with the power of its passing, the great feet pounding the floor. It was at the other end of the large space, and Howard did a quick series of calculations in his head. He could just make it, if he put everything he had into it – and he found himself across the room and hauling both men toward the hallway before he’d even finished the thought. 

Evan was still dazed, but the other guy was scrambling to his feet looking stunned for a different reason. 

“I’m still alive,” he breathed in a thick British accent. London or thereabouts, Howard thought inanely. “How the hell?”

“For now,” Howard agreed breathlessly. “You got ammo?” he asked, nodding toward the automatic weapon in the kid’s hands. The kid nodded. “Good, let’s get that thing out of here.”

The kid nodded decisively, and opened fire, while Howard added a continuous round from his own weapon to the stream. Stumpy roared displeasure, but it took the hint, rearing up and turning tail through the anomaly. 

Howard was shaking with adrenalin. At his feet, Evan Cross demanded, “What the hell?”

Howard looked down and saw the kid pulled out an anomaly detector. “You’re from his future,” he guessed.

“You know –“

“About Cross Photonics’ side business. Yeah. What’s your name and what’s today’s date, kid?”

“Mac Rendell. June 9, 2012.”

“Okay, Mac Rendell, you get your ass back to June 9, 2012.” He reached out and snatched the anomaly detector. “I’m going to need that. Your weapon, too.”

“But –“

He glanced down at his own detector, saw the display of time left to the anomaly. “This thing is going to collapse in less than two minutes, Mac Rendell from June 9, 2012 – get your ass moving!”

“I –“

“Go!”

Mac stepped back, open-mouthed, and glanced toward Evan, who was scrambling to his feet. Then he nodded once toward Howard and sprinted toward the anomaly, still glittering like the diamond maw of hell.

&&&

Dylan leaned further into the space between them, practically climbing into the front seat. She looked from one to the other and grimaced. The silence was starting to piss her off. “Okay. I know it’s weird – Howard wasn’t there when we went through the anomaly. So why was he there when we got back? Evan? And Mac – how did you –”

“He saved me,” Mac blurted simply. “That dude back there. He was there, in the basement, in the anomaly, waiting. That guy you called Howard.” He scrubbed a hand through his spiky hair. “He chased the dino back out through the anomaly, grabbed me by the jacket and demanded my name, asked me the date, took my weapon and detector, then he kicked me back through. I went back to save you, honestly I did – but you didn’t need saving, Evan,” Mac said urgently, turning toward Evan. “He, Howard’d already done it.”

Evan exhaled a loud, exasperated sigh. “Figures. When I get my hands on him –”

Dylan squeezed Evan’s shoulder sympathetically. “So we know what changed back then. Why the anomalies became unstable. But what changes did _that_ trigger?”

They were in sight of Cross Photonics now, and Mac let out a low whistle. “Well, I’m guessing that’s one of them,” he said, pointing to a massive complex where the modest digs of Cross Photonics had been. The building had a couple more floors added, took up way more real estate, boasted a parking garage in addition to the parking lot close to the main entrance. A massive glass-encased tower rose up at one corner. Beyond that was some sort of compound. And where the big “Cross Photonics” sign once sat was one that read instead, “Kanan-Cross.” The entire facility was bounded by a security fence, and Evan had to turn down the lane through a security checkpoint, where he was waved through by a uniformed security guard.

“Well, that’s new,” Evan snorted sourly. “And it sucks. At least it’s not Kanan Enterprises,” he snarled, nodding toward the big sign. “Damn him!” he pounded the steering wheel. “He always has to be top dog! Ego out of control!” He pulled into the parking lot and turned toward his space, blinking in surprise when he found it where he expected to find it, complete with the sign that said, “Evan Cross” with “President” on the line beneath. “Huh. Well, that’s promising. But I can’t wait to take a look inside.”

&&&

“What the –“ Evan Cross asked, looking in confusion from the device in Howard’s hand to his face and over his shoulder to the coruscating anomaly. “What just happened –?”

“Take this,” Howard pressed the anomaly detector he’d liberated from Rendell, “and this,” he added the time card with his scrawled notes, “to me at Kanan Enterprises. Yeah, don’t ask. Just go. Tell me about this day, about what you’ve experienced – _that_ ,” he added, pointing to the anomaly. “Tell me about that. And give me – the other me – that card. It’ll explain everything.”

“Yeah, but _I_ don’t understand –“

“Portals to time and space, man. Anomalies. You just dodged a cosmic bullet.” He glanced down at his detector and saw the numbers counting down. “You’ll figure out the physics. You’re smart that way. But I gotta go. Live long and prosper, huh? And oh – your wife is in the room down the hall, waiting for you. She’s safe. Be happy.” 

As Howard turned to pass through the anomaly himself, young Evan called out, “How, uh, why – shit, what the hell?” 

And then Howard’s reality changed.

&&&

Howard stood in the reception area of Kanan-Cross, a shit-eating grin on his face as he lounged against the security desk, waiting. The guard glanced up at him as Evan’s team approached the door, and Howard nodded approval. The door opened inward and Evan, Dylan, and Mac filed into the vaulted entry space. Howard pushed off from the security desk and waved over a trio of uniformed guards as he stepped up to meet them.

“Welcome home,” he greeted, still grinning. “Glad to see you found the old place.”

“Yeah, with a brand new name and a really ugly sign,” Evan groused. “What the hell, Howard? Where’s my reception area? And when did you put my building on steroids?”

“Yeah, been a few changes since we last saw each other. These gentlemen will show you to your quarters – I know you’re gonna want to clean up first. I’d prefer it, actually.”

“I don’t need to clean up – I need answers –“

“Yeah, but you’ve got some scorpion goo right … there,” Howard touched a crusty spot of gelatinous ick on Evan’s t-shirt. He grimaced. “You might want to take a shower and burn those clothes, Evan. I should really put you all through bio-containment – God knows what microbes you’ve dragged back here.”

Dylan sneezed suddenly, rubbing at her nose. At the alarmed glance from Kanan, she shook her head. “Dust up my nose. Seriously.” Laying her hand gently on Evan’s forearm, she noted, “I want answers, too, Evan, but I have to admit a shower sounds like an awfully good idea. I stink of the Silurian – and you don’t smell much better,” she added, wrinkling her nose. “In fact, I’m pretty sure you smell worse.”

“What about you?” Evan demanded of Mac. “You have to hit the little girl’s room, too?”

“Evan, that’s not fair,” Dylan protested, and Mac moved behind her, placing his hands protectively on her arms. 

“Evan, man, chill,” Mac urged. “It’s not the end of the world if we take a little break –“

“Are you sure, Mac? We don’t know what’s changed out there since we crossed through the anomaly –“

“Give it a rest, Cross,” Howard interposed, physically inserting himself into the discussion. 

“I just want to know one thing – is Tobes okay?” Mac asked quietly.

“’Tobes’? Uh –“ Howard shook his head, confused.

“Toby. Nance. Mac’s right – is Toby okay?” Evan asked, and Dylan turned toward Howard in the same moment, her face anxious as she waited with them for Howard’s answer.

“Yeah, she’s fine. But you guys are dead on your feet. Why don’t we let Mac and Dylan get cleaned up, and you and me, we’ll talk. Okay?” He gestured toward the elevator, eyebrows raised hopefully. “Hmm?”

Evan stared at Howard, his face hard. He nodded, once.

“Okay. Guys, if you could show Mr. Rendell to his apartment, and Ms. Weir to the guest suite. Like we discussed, okay?” To Dylan and Mac, he added, “They’ll get you settled – we’ll debrief later, all right?”

“Sure, but apartment?” Mac asked. “Are you saying I live here?”

“Residence tower. All senior staff have apartments on site. Most of us have other homes, but the company provides on-site living quarters – some use ‘em, some don’t. We good?”

Mac and Dylan nodded in unison. Mac gestured for Dylan to precede him, and together they followed the guards to the elevator to the residence tower. Howard could hear Dylan comment, “I guess I didn’t take advantage of the perk – or maybe I’m not considered senior staff. Look at you, all important and stuff,” she teased Mac. Howard winced inwardly. This was going to be long day.

Turning back to Evan, he held his gaze, and said, “I told you I wanted in.”

“Did you have to change the world to do it?”  
  


“You don’t know the half of it.” Howard nodded toward the office elevator, and suggested, “Shall we?”

&&&

“You saved me, Cross,” Howard Kanan was explaining over a tumbler of fine scotch. Evan came out of the washroom off Howard’s office, drying his hands. He’d washed his face and hands and felt a little more human, but even he had to admit he was pretty ripe after his sojourn in the Silurian. He’d be spitting dust out for a week after being nearly buried alive in that ancient cave. 

Howard closed the gap and handed him a glass of scotch. “Single malt?” Evan asked.

“Only the best at Kanan-Cross.”

Evan snorted softly, took the glass, and dropped onto the couch. “You were saying?” Some of his fury had faded, eclipsed by the weariness that threatened to knock him flat. He wondered briefly it the drink was a good idea, and shrugged. The amber liquid flowed over the ice like honey, the scent of it rich and enticing. He held up the glass and watched Howard through the prism of the ice cubes, watching his image fracture into a thousand tiny, kaleidoscopic pieces, like an anomaly caught in a bottle. He shook his head, cleared the image, and focused on the man instead.

“You saved me.”

“How, Howard?”

Howard was a few years older, in his forties, tall, athletic, with sandy blond hair that was just beginning to thin. His face had a houndish quality – long with a hint of jowls to come. Women might find him attractive, Evan supposed. He knew him as a fellow scientist, and one who’d been annoying to say the least. Howard had sued Evan for patent infringement when he’d gone public with his photonics design. But when Evan and Dylan ended up on Howard’s property trying to contain a triceratops who’d come through the anomaly, Evan and Howard had ended up collaborating. 

As a consequence of that day, Howard knew a lot about the anomalies, the tech Evan had developed, even the fact that his photonics design really was Evan’s and unique from anything Howard had been working on. And Evan had learned what he could become if he didn’t get his obsession under control – Howard had been living in a mansion with energy bars and bottled water, like a crazy old hermit detached from society and reality, sinking deeper into madness. But Howard had learned about the anomalies and become excited again, reconnected on an intellectual level, and he’d gone through the anomaly that day. And he hadn’t been seen or heard from since. At least in Evan’s timeline. Until today.

“You saw what I was like. I’d hit bottom. Hell, I was in the sub-basement to bottom, and I couldn’t see it until you showed me,” he added with a self-deprecating chuckle as he paced the high-tech office, the sweep of floor to ceiling windows aglow with the scarlet edge of sunset stretching across the horizon. The office used to be Evan’s office, when the building was Cross Photonics, and not Kanan-Cross. Howard was animated to the point of manic. “Damn but it’s good to be able to talk about this at last!” He turned and flashed a grin at Evan, but Evan just raised his eyebrows anemically. “It’s been a long six months, Cross. I couldn’t talk to the other you about this stuff – he just didn’t have the context to get me.” He downed the remainder of his drink, went back to the sideboard and poured another.

“But the anomalies, the portals into the past … and the future,” he added throatily. “I felt engaged again. The majesty of it, Evan – the pure _terror_. The day you helped a triceratops flatten my poolhouse was the best damned day of my life. Well, since before my wife got sick. After Kathy was diagnosed, there were _no_ good days.” Kanan halted his pacing and took a deep gulp of the liquor, pausing a moment to close his eyes and savor the liquid burning down his throat. “This is good stuff,” he added conversationally, and glanced over to where Evan sat on the couch, cradling his glass.

“You saved me, Evan. You helped me find a reason to live again. That’s a debt I can never fully repay.”

&&&

“Here you are, Ms. Weir,” the uniformed guard used the key card to open the door to a beautifully furnished and spacious apartment. From the doorway, she could see a modern dining room with a fancy Scandanavian-style chandelier, a comfy-looking sectional placed across from a marble wall dominated by a fireplace below the stone mantle, and a massive plasma screen above. The outer wall was floor to ceiling windows looking out over the front lawn of Kanan-Cross, and Vancouver beyond. He pushed the door open, then stood back to let her pass by.

“Wow, this is nice. I guess it pays to be a guest,” she added grinning at the guard. “I won’t be long – I just want to freshen up, and then I’ll meet with Mr. Kanan, and head home. I didn’t see my car in the lot – do you know where it’s been moved?”

“Ma’am?”

“My car. I didn’t see it.”

“Mr. Kanan will explain everything, Ms. Weir,” the guard said neutrally. “Later. You won’t need your car tonight.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mr. Kanan said to be comfortable and have a good night’s sleep, ma’am. I’ll be outside in the hall if you need anything. Bathroom’s through there,” he nodded toward the hallway off the living room. “Good night,” he added, and before she could utter another word, he’d backed out of the apartment and closed the door quietly behind him. She could hear the sound of an electronic lock engaging as she stood there blinking at the space he’d occupied.

“What the hell?”

&&&

“I thought you’d died on the other side of the anomaly.”

“I almost did. In my … _hubris_ … I was woefully ill-prepared for life in the Cretaceous. I don’t know, maybe I _was_ hoping I’d die there. But then I started following the anomalies.”

“Plural.”

“Plural. There is more than one nexus. Multiple spaghetti junctions clustered in different times. But none of them led me where I wanted to go.”

“And where was that?”

“Where do you think?”

“You can’t bring her back, Howard.”

“No? No, you’re right. I couldn’t find an anomaly that brought me anywhere close. No, I lost my wife to breast cancer, and there was no way I was getting her back. I think I finally accepted that. But I found your dinosaur. And that’s when I knew what I had to do.”

Evan looked up at that, his skin tingling. “What do you mean, Howard?”

“I mean, you saved me, so I saved you. _Quid pro quo_. And we’ve been working together ever since. Oh, and your lovely wife, of course.”

“What? No, Dylan and I –”

“Not Dylan. Brooke. Although we _are_ going to have to discuss Dylan –”

“Brooke. Brooke’s _alive_?”

“Not only alive, but down the hall. She didn’t come out to today’s exercise because she’s working on finishing up a proposal for us for a new project. So, you and Dylan aren’t … ?” Howard asked over his drink, a note of interest in his voice.

“What, no – wait, she’s here, in this building? Brooke?” Evan demanded, leaning forward eagerly. Then he slumped back on the couch, his expression worried. “Does she know … I mean, she must understand something about the anomalies, but today –”

“I’ve operated under full disclosure with you both. She’s known there would come a point where you’d go through that anomaly, and you’d be different when you came back. Yeah, no. I didn’t … I didn’t tell her or you at first.” He considered his drink for a long moment, took a deep drink of it and stood there with his eyes closed for a long moment. “I realized it wouldn’t be fair to just let it happen, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. So, yeah, she’s known for a couple of months, now. Once I told her, I had to tell him, too.”

“Does she know, you know –”

“That it’s happened? Not yet. I never told either of them the actual date. That seemed too cruel. So she doesn’t know it’s happened. I thought maybe you might want to talk with her first.”

“Talk with her,” Evan repeated, panic welling up in his chest. He felt like his body was buzzing with adrenalin – fight or flight! He could talk with Brooke. Talk with his wife. Touch her … he took a deep, steadying breath. “Yeah, I’d like that. Ah, what does she do here?”

“She’s our corporate administrator. Does an amazing job, really. Granted there are people all over the world that run things locally, but Brooke helps to run the show here, in our world headquarters. Among other things, normally she coordinates our civilian team with the military support. She and Major Leeds work well together.”

“ _Major_ Leeds. Well, at least he’s not in military prison.”

“Is that what happened to him in the previous timeline? Yeah, I can see that – he makes you feel all comfy cozy with his politeness, but you can see he’s a crafty little bugger behind those eyes. There’s mischief brewing.”

“No, he helped us. Helped _me_.” Rolling the glass between his palms for a moment, he asked quietly. “What about Colonel Hall?”

“Colonel Henderson Hall?” Kanan barked a laugh. “Military nutcase. Wanted to plumb the depths of the past to bring some contagion forward to clean up the oceans. Or put something in the past to prevent pollution. That’s interference on too grand a scale even for me. Nah, I had him mothballed.”

“You had him _what_? Howard, what’s your involvement with the military –“

“Well, when you’re one of the two top guys of the biggest tech company on the planet, you find yourself with a little leverage. Y’see, Evan, you had great instincts, you’re a fricking genius of the first order. What you didn’t have was focus. Not only did I save you, I freed you – we’re partners in Kanan-Cross, and you have unlimited resources at your disposal. Your photonic technology combined with my patent backlog has made us both richer than Croesus. We’re bigger than Microsoft. We’re bigger than Apple. We’re bigger than both combined now. This is only the headquarters,” he added, encompassing the complex with a wave of his hand. “We’re in every country on the planet, and I’ve got some ideas about the Moon, too,” he added, grinning.

“There is no way we are partners.”

“Oh, _way_ , Cross. Way. In a big way. Like I said, ironclad contract. It’s not a bad gig, Cross.” 

In the next heartbeat, his expression grew serious, and his voice did too. “And what that means is you’re not in this alone – you can spend time on anomalies and not lose everything. You have a reliable funding stream, a crack team, and more anomalies than you could ever want to chase. And _your_ wife is part of the adventure. The greatest adventure _ever_. What more could you want?”

“What do you get out of it, Howard? Other than putting your name first?”

“That frosts your ass, doesn’t it?” He barked a laugh, subsided to a chuckle. “Hell, I’m older. Partnership was my idea. I was right, too. We’ve done amazing things together. Did I mention the fact that we’re bigger than Gates and Jobs? Combined? Those guys come to us, Cross! _Governments_ come to us!” Kanan grinned again. 

“Yeah. That’s pretty sweet. But it’s more than that. I never knew what it was like to not be the smartest guy in the room, Cross. Never experienced it. Until I met you. I like it. I like collaborating with someone who understands me no matter how out there the idea is. For the first time since my wife died, I’m having fun. And I’m making boatloads of money doing it. _We’re_ making boatloads of cash, and we’re doing it responsibly. We’re reforesting the Amazon, Cross. We’re funding research to rebuild the polar ice caps, fix the hole in the fucking ozone layer. We’re doing stuff with nanotechnology that’ll make your toes curl. We’re the number one company to work for, globally. We’re funding charitable efforts worldwide. Did I mention we’re bigger than Microsoft and Apple combined? Not to mention Intel? What _don’t_ I get out of this?”

“And what did it cost, Howard? There are consequences to every action. You set in motion countless actions with yours. You saved my wife. You saved my life. But at what cost?”

&&&

He walked into the flat the guard said belonged to him, and instantly recognized it as his own. Whatever differences there might have been between the Mac Rendell of this timeline and him, they weren’t in their decorating tastes. He thought it was kind of weird that he lived on site, but then again, everything was weird right now.

But that’s where it ended. There was no sense of the person who lived there – no personal mementos, no photographs. It was like he – his other self – was a ghost. And he certainly hadn’t expected to go poof! through an anomaly – there were dirty dishes in the sink, underwear dropped by the hamper, bills laid out on the desk waiting for stamps. Mac felt like he was violating someone else’s life, and after stopping for a shower and a change of clothes – naturally, everything in the flat fit him – he was off, nervous about staying in that haunted apartment.

&&&

“Howard, have you heard from Connor Temple at all?”

“Funny little British dude, never makes any sense? Yeah, he tried to get in a couple of times. Finally had him banned from the compound. Why? He a friend of yours?” 

“Yeah, Howard, he knows more about anomalies than you and I will ever do. He wants to talk, he wants to visit, he wants to take over your office, Howard, you let him. You have him escorted in with an honor guard and a marching band. Understood?”

“ _Shit_. Yeah, understood. I thought he was just some crazy dude –”

“I’m betting we’re going to need his help big-time. The continuum is swiss-cheesed by now. Howard, how the hell _did_ you get back into your own time stream? As soon as you changed my past, you should have changed your own. What would have possessed you – other you – to go through the anomaly at just the right time?”

“Yeah, I still haven’t worked that one out yet. And believe me, I’ve tried. I think luck was with me that day. I followed the anomaly chain and found myself back on my property. I debated about what to do, and did a little reconnoitering – that’s when I saw the trike. And you, Leeds, Tony, and me. I knew I was at the right time, although I was surprised to see Tony and not Dylan. So clearly there was already some impact from the time ripple. I debated about what side of the anomaly to be on, but I ultimately opted to stay on this side – I didn’t want to be on the wrong side when it closed. Then he, me, us ended up going through, just before the anomaly collapsed. You and Leeds went nuts, but finally you left the glade. Then I just came out a little later.”

“How’d you explain that? There wouldn’t have been any anomaly signature.”

“White lie. Said it reopened suddenly and I jumped through, and then it was gone. Blip no one would notice.”

“So there’s another you out there. And there’s no guarantee he’s not going to change the course of _your_ history.”

“No. No, that’s not possible. I assumed the time stream.”

“Howard, once he – the other Howard – was on the other side of that anomaly from you, he was part of a separate time stream. It’s possible.” 

“But the other you – the you that went through the anomaly earlier today – he’s not coming back. He’s you.”

“Yeah, but the time ripple happened while I was on the other side. The change took place on the other side of the anomaly, too. There’s only me.”

“You’ve done the math.”

“Yeah. So how come you can remember? Everything I understand about these things, anyone outside the anomaly when a time ripple occurs wouldn’t remember the world before the change. Yet you haven’t lost anything –“

“The triggering event was six years ago this side of the anomaly. Today, your time. But six years ago for this timeline.”  
  


Evan nodded, absorbing the information. “My reality is gone. I’ve blended into this one. And I guess it’s time I figured out how that works. How I fit.”

Howard raised his glass to Evan. “Then I guess it’s time you got started, hmmm?”

&&&

Evan followed Howard’s directions through the corridors of Kanan-Cross, mapping the new layout in his head as he made his way through altered landscape, trying to absorb the ways in which his immediate world had changed. He knew at his core that this change was permanent, and there was no way they were going back to the timeline he remembered. He needed to gauge how extensive the changes were, needed to understand how much his life was well and truly screwed. Needed to understand what had happened to the world. 

Howard made it sound like he had the best of all possible worlds, but he knew there had to be a catch, had to be a hidden cost he wasn’t seeing.

Howard had said that Brooke was alive. Alive. And here! His heart took an involuntary leap. In his deepest, most hidden place, he had to admit that every time he’d stepped through an anomaly, he’d dreamed of stepping back into that basement, of somehow pulling Brooke to safety so that the last six years of loneliness, guilt, and pain hadn’t happened. But he’d always been too conscious of the impact to time, the butterfly effect and the damage such a simple act could cause. Even today, standing there, counting down the hours to Brooke’s death, he couldn’t do it. He’d held her life in his hands, and he couldn’t do it.

But Howard had done it. He’d had the balls, the nerve and the downright stupidity to do what he couldn’t. Consequences be damned. It was done, and he couldn’t undo it. Scrubbing his hand over his mouth and chin, Evan found himself shaking. He wasn’t guilt-free because Howard had done the deed. He knew that Howard had done it for him. He was as responsible as Howard for whatever consequences of that action there were.

But … Brooke was alive. Here and now. And he knew that when he’d convinced himself that he was over her, that he was ready to move on and build a life with Ange, he’d been conning himself. He’d never gotten over losing Brooke, never gotten over her. He loved her as much in this moment as he did six years ago and all the years before.

His feet moved of their own accord down the carpeted hallway toward one of the outer offices – Ange’s office in the old timeline, he noted with a sad chuckle. And there she was. He stood just shy of the juncture of the corridors, where he could see her, but he wasn’t clearly in her view. He felt silly lurking like a stalker in his own offices, but needs must …

She was typing something on the computer, looking efficient and gorgeous and, yes, thank God, breathing. Behind her, long slatted blinds were closed against the gathering night, and she seemed oblivious to the waning day. Wireless glasses perched precariously on the tip of her nose as she concentrated on whatever was on her computer screen, and her lower lip was caught between her teeth in a way he remembered well. A small smile touched his lips as he realized he’d been holding his breath, and let it out slowly, silently. _It really was her_. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. It really was _her!_

Her hair was shorter than it had been six years ago, styled and coiffed by a professional. He frowned at that; his Brooke had eschewed hair dressers and pricy product for the natural look, and he’d loved her for it. He’d loved her unruly hair, her comfy t-shirts and flowy cotton dresses, her broken-in tennis shoes and fuzzy slippers. The way her hair would flop down over one eye when she read a book, and the way she’d tuck in behind her ear while chewing on her lower lip. He closed his eyes for a moment, and revisited Sunday mornings doing the _Times_ crossword in pajamas and in bed. Long, lazy afternoons that would stretch on forever. The memory brought a smile to his lips and a longing to his heart.

He opened his eyes again and looked at her again. This Brooke …this Brooke was all business, fit for a Board of Director’s meeting, not a jog around the park or an afternoon at the library. Or Sundays in bed. Her business suit was impeccably cut, the drape of her blouse runway-perfect. A quick glance below the glass-topped desk revealed shapely legs crossed at the ankles, expensive-looking high heeled shoes haphazardly kicked aside. Now that was _his_ Brooke, and he couldn’t help the grin that suddenly tugged at his lips. 

And just as suddenly, he became aware that the steady click of her fingernails on the keyboard had stopped, and she sat as though suspended, still looking down at her keyboard. Her lips pursed and her tongue flicked out to moisten them. “How long have you been standing there?” she asked quietly, not yet looking up.

“Just a couple of minutes. I can’t believe it,” he breathed, his chest tightening. “It’s really you,” he added, his voice barely a whisper.

She was silent for a long moment, then she nodded once to herself, drawing a deep breath. “So. Today’s the Day,” she said, tapping one last key before closing the lid on her laptop and raising her eyes to look directly at him at last. Her expression was guarded, braced.

“The ‘Day’?”

She took another deep breath and forced a smile. Her gaze seemed drawn to the window, and she turned to stare out across the broad lawn of the Kanan-Cross grounds. “Howard warned us there would come a day when the time stream would turn back on itself.”

“Interesting way to put it. Yeah, he mentioned that. Then I guess you’re right – today’s the Day.”

“And the woman who came through the anomaly with you? I understand you weren’t alone this trip, Rendell wasn’t the only person with you. News travels fast here. This woman you were travelling with … is she … is she your wife?” For a moment, naked hurt blossomed across her expertly made up features. When had Brooke become Ange? he asked himself absurdly. And the hurt on her face made his chest ache even more.

“Dylan? Dylan’s not my wife.” He felt the sting of tears forming again, felt his throat close off with the tension of pain and loneliness six years in the making. He tried to tamp down the emotion, but it wasn’t cooperating. He felt the anguish rising and balled his fists against it, willing it back into its box in the corner of his soul. It fought back like a son of a bitch.

She let a small smile play on her lips, eyes glancing down as a hopeful twitch lifted the corners of her mouth. “So … has there been … ?”

“Anyone since you … well, since my … once. One,” he corrected himself awkwardly. Seriously, they were going to have _that_ conversation _now_?

“Someone I know?” The hurt look was back again, and he closed his eyes, debating whether truth was really necessary. In this world, it had never happened. In his world …

“Ange. A couple of months ago,” he blurted, chewing the inside of his cheek.

A bitter smile darkened her face. “Ange. Yeah, that explains a lot,” she said acidly. She schooled her expression to a polite blankness and nodded to herself as though making a decision. She flipped open the laptop lid, typed in her password. “There was always something between the two of you that I couldn’t get in the middle of,” she added flatly, turning her attention back to the computer. Evan felt struck, dismissed. Adrift.

“You’ve been gone for six years for me, Brooke,” he protested, shoving his hands in his pockets and stepping into the office. “I watched you die. I buried you. I mourned you. And I never forgot you. Never stopped loving you.” He was pissed off now, chin jutting forward, lips pressed together in an angry frown. “People told me I was crazy, that I was killing myself with grief. But I couldn’t let go.”

“But you _did_ let go.”

“I tried. God knows I tried. Ange knew it before I did. I think she always knew it. I never stopped loving you, never let you go – six years, or six lifetimes, I don’t know that I could ever let you go.”

“You’ve only been gone for six hours, Evan. Six hours since I last kissed you. Him. _My_ Evan,” she corrected herself, with an angry shake of her head. “The Evan I kissed this morning is gone forever now, isn’t he?” A tear leaked out of her eye as she looked up at him, really looked at him for the first time since he’d come to her office. “Nothing of the last six years is left, is it?”

He took a shuddering breath, replied in voice laden with tears, “The last six years have been hell, Brooke. There’s not one day I haven’t missed you, haven’t second-guessed myself about what happened in that basement. But I couldn’t take the risk of changing the timeline, couldn’t risk what could happen to everyone else just to –”

“Just to what, Evan? Just to save your _wife’s life_?” she challenged, rising from her chair to lean over her desk on splayed hands. The pain was exposed in her eyes, naked and needy. Cold lanced through him at the sight of that pain.

“One life. With billions more in the balance,” he answered softly. It sounded inadequate even to his ears; he knew it would sound like an excuse to her. But as much as he ached for her, he still questioned would it be worth it? Would having her back be worth whatever other changes were wrought in the world as a consequence?

“Well, Howard wasn’t afraid of those odds –” she practically spat at him.

“Howard was one step away from foot-long toenails and drinking his own urine when I found him and told him about the anomalies –” he snapped back, taking another step into the office.

“Told him about them – he _discovered_ them. He brought you along for the ride –” she taunted, straightening and turned toward him as he paced closer.

“Is that what he told you? That I’m a willing follower?” he demanded, stepping sideways as he prowled the edge of room.

“I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. And when you joined up with him, your precious Angelika Finch got on a plane for Japan, _domo arigato_ very much. No future for her in Howard’s company, although he was perfectly willing –”

“Dammit, Brooke!” Impulsively, Evan crossed the space between them, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her urgently, hand cupping her cheek, the other curled around her waist to draw her to him. Her eyes went wide with surprise, but fluttered closed as she leaned into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing close. In that instant, six years of agony washed away. Six years of guilt and loneliness evaporated in the heat of her lips on his, the beat of her heart against his chest, the crush of her body against his. The feel of her along his body set his skin on fire, the heat so intense the small part of rational mind still functioning was sure he’d be a pile of ash in seconds. His native timeline or not, Evan Cross was home.

&&&

Fists shoved in his jeans pockets, leather collar tucked up to his ears, Mac Rendell slid through the corridors of Kanan-Cross like a ghost. At least, that’s how he felt. Everything was the same and yet so different. Reception was the same wide open space, looking out over the lawn and parking lot, and a sign that looked nothing like the one he remembered. Beyond he could see the skyline of Vancouver in relief against the darkening sky. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and dusk was creeping across the sky.

The guard on duty touched the bill of his cap as Mac wandered through the reception area, and asked if Mac would be taking his bike out tonight. Actually, he called him “Mr. Rendell,” which struck Mac as hysterically funny. He was a twenty-five year old kid from the council flats … he wondered if his parents were still alive, and what they must think of how their son had fared in the world. Too late to call them now, but he suddenly had a yearning to hear his Mum’s voice.

But he had to admit the idea of taking his bike out sounded really good, but right now, he wasn’t sure he’d come back once he got out on the open road. And he wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, or a really stupid one.

With a little wave to the guard – Fred, he saw from his name badge – he went through the security turnstile and took a turn into the offices. Just an evening perambulation to get his bearings.

The setup of Kanan-Cross was different from Cross Photonics. For one thing, actual work appeared to be getting done. In the past few months at Cross Photonics, the place was losing energy and focus by degrees. Staff had been resigning, and contracts were slipping through their fingers. The writing was on the wall, but Evan hadn’t seen it, hadn’t wanted to see it. The SPG had been siphoning all the resources, and Evan had no time or attention for anything but the anomalies. And once Ange left, the company started a slow, ungainly spiral toward self-destruction. Icarus descending.

This area housed the business side of the company, HR, Admin, Finance. All the stuff that Evan hated to deal with. Everything looked so prosperous, so focused. The fittings and fixtures were all high end, good quality stuff. Effort had been put into making it a comfortable workplace. The hints he picked up in the literature in reception and in the motivational posters framed on the walls here in the office area led him to believe that Kanan-Cross was a big deal. A very big deal. And they had clear ties with the Canadian military. 

So just how were they able to deal with the anomalies without drawing media attention?

Yeah, he’d be willing to bet the military presence had something to do with that. He’d noticed the checkpoints along their route back to this facility, quiet and relatively unobtrusive sitting alongside the road, but he imagined if any news vans or curious onlookers had happened upon them, action would have been taken. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what action, and that made it all the more important that he find out.

In their old timeline, the military had been an external annoyance rather than a part of the daily fabric, but Leeds had been effective in containing any media attention regarding anomalies and creature incursions. For a while it had seemed like they could trust him. That is, until Colonel Hall decided he wanted to own Evan and his anomaly technology. Until they learned that Leeds had been helping Hall to capture creatures for experimentation. Vivisection. It had felt like a living horror film when he and Dylan had snuck into their labs and saw what Hall’s team was doing to the very creatures Evan, Dylan and he had risked their lives to return to their own times. 

It had all become so screwed up so fast!

He’d come to the end of the administrative wing, and found himself walking down a quiet hall toward another security checkpoint. The guard greeted him as “Mr. Rendell” again, and he found he was getting to like it. At 25, the only folks who normally called him “Mister” were telemarketers and bill collectors, so it was quite nice, if a bit odd.

The locked double doors ahead of him had both a card reader and a biometric scan. The raised letters above the doors said, “Research and Development.” This would be the area where there might be people abroad, the boffins who didn’t know to leave when the clock struck 5. There were likely to be familiar faces and not-so-familiar faces. He hadn’t admitted to himself that he was looking for one particular familiar face. Not yet. He didn’t want to find out she wasn’t here. Odds were, this would be a safe area, for the time being anyway.

As expected, he did find a couple of occupied offices and labs, folks bent over drafting tables, in luridly lit clean rooms, over keyboards lit by the light of flickering LED monitors. If they looked up, he waved slightly, but kept on moving, kept on mapping the layout in his head. Kept wandering. Passed one of the security guards on rounds, nodded and said hello, got another “Mr. Rendell” for his trouble, and kept going. The fact that none of these guards seemed at all surprised to see him made him wonder if his other self was a night owl, paranoid, or just very thorough, and did routine night checks of security. Well, it was one way to keep fit without hitting the gym – this place was frigging huge, and he hadn’t gone up the other side yet. The footprint of even this first floor was bigger than Evan’s whole company had been.

He made this way through another checkpoint, this one overlooking two sets of massive blast doors, each one requiring pass, biometric scan, and DNA verification based on a tiny blood stick. He went through one, closing it behind him with a clang. There was no guard on this side of the door, but as he stepped into open industrial space, he saw the stairway down to the Special Project Group unit. Familiar territory at last. He’d found the Tank.

He stood for a long moment with his hand on the railing, foot poised to take the first step downward, but he hesitated. His grip tightened, and he sighed deeply, shaking his head once. No. No, not tonight. He wasn’t ready to see what the differences were there. Wasn’t ready to see that Tobes wasn’t there. Or if she was, didn’t remember him. Didn’t care the way she’d learned to. At least he knew she was safe. But beyond that … 

No, he wasn’t ready to go down that staircase. Wasn’t ready for that road. Not yet.

He turned away and made his way back through the checkpoint and headed through the alternate doorway, and found himself out in the warehouse, where another checkpoint stood on the other side of the heavy duty blast doors. They snicked shut with a metallic thud. He nodded a greeting to guard, Bernie from his name tag, and walked into another high ceilinged industrial space, this one occupied by corridors lined with towers of massive shelves, neatly labeled, bar-coded, and shrink-wrapped.

He recognized this place, too. Down there would be the loading dock. Over there, the elevator where Sam almost escaped that prehistoric dog thing. Over there, blood had stained the concrete so extensively, Ange had had to have the clean-up crew coat it in acid to clear away the stain. He couldn’t stop his feet turning and walking to the area in front of the elevator and he found himself simply standing there. He stared at the floor for a long moment, looking for evidence that something had happened here, but he could see nothing but the normal wear and tear of a warehouse floor. He felt something uncoil inside him, and let go a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding.

“Hey, Mr. Rendell, whatchya doing? Can I help you?”

Suddenly, Mac was standing on the surface of the Moon, airless, freezing cold, and a million miles from safety. He stood there, blinked once, twice, and swallowed. His tongue flicked out and slid across his lips, but his mouth was beyond dry.

“Mr. Rendell? Sir?”

Opening and closing his mouth in panic, Mac swallowed again, and just turned to face her.

“Um, good evening,” he greeted Samantha Sedaris stiffly, warily.

“Sam. Sam Sedaris? You interviewed me when I joined Kanan-Cross three years ago.” She tilted her head to one side and looked up at him expectantly, her long wavy hair framing her face. She was dressed comfortably in black slacks and shirt, sturdy work shoes, beneath a Kanan-Cross jacket. Her name tag dangled from the breast pocket of the jacket, but he knew who she was before he’d even seen her. 

Sam. Alive and whole. The woman he’d given his heart to, the woman he’d wanted to give his key to. The woman he’d buried in their old timeline. She looked up at him politely, but there was no hint of the intense heat that had passed between them in that other life. And yet, he felt as though the air had burned away as he looked down into her expectant face.

“Right, yes,” he replied, mind racing. Yeah, no, pretty much a blank. Raced right off the track and into the abyss. “Um, how are you liking Kanan-Cross, Ms. Sedaris?” Yeah, that sounded beyond lame …

“I like it just fine – I’m still here. Is there some reason you’re out here in the warehouse, sir?” 

Mac noticed that Sam seemed nervous, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. He turned his head slightly, narrowing his eyes. “Is there something wrong, Ms. Sedaris?” he asked suspiciously.

“Sam, call me Sam,” she corrected a little abruptly.

“Yea-ah,” he agreed, smiling. “I think I need to see what’s down this corridor,” he told her suddenly, and strode quickly down the hallway toward the truck bay.

She trotted alongside him, still trying to convince him he didn’t need to go any further into the truck bay, which only made him more determined to see what was going on. And then he found himself standing between a couple of trucks in front of a small round table, Bill Pierson sitting in a utilitarian chair on one side, playing cards in hand. An abandoned hand, laid face down on the table, and another chair hastily pulled away from the table told him all he needed to know.

And looking at Bill, Mac felt something else relax inside him. The incident with the dog thing didn’t happen here. It just didn’t! Or if it did come through the anomaly, they either didn’t bring it back here, or they kept it properly contained. Score two for this side of the anomaly.

“Playing cards on company time?” Mac challenged, assuming a military stance and flaring angrily at the two of them. Bill leapt to his feet, dropping his cards in the process. She contained it quickly, but Mac saw the triumphant look on Sam’s face – Bill had been bluffing to mask an inferior hand.

“Sir, guard duty in the warehouse gets _boring_ at night,” Sam protested. “Gotta do something to pass the time –“

“It’s the job,” he reminded them sternly. “What about the others?”

“The others, sir?” Bill asked nervously.

“The other guards. Do they play too? Or is this a private party?”

Bill’s mouth opened and closed, with only a squeak for his trouble. Sam looked guiltier, looking everywhere but at Mac. “I see.”

“We rotate,” Sam admitted suddenly. “No post is left unmanned. Everyone gets a chance for a break, but we don’t allow security to be breached.”

Mac stood there, doing the sums in his head. With the guard on patrol, and assuming there was probably more than one taking the upper floors, odds were good she was right. But he wondered why his other self had never ventured out here, when it was obvious he’d been a fixture on the night shift.

And then a small smile touched Mac’s lips. Probably because his other self had been interested in Sam, but hadn’t done anything about it, since as security boss, asking out one of the security guards could have been considered sexual harassment. He’d come out here and observed, quietly, and never let them know he was near.

“Right then. I guess you’d best deal me in, eh?”

&&&

Dylan Weir paced the comfy, upscale confines of her prison anxiously. She’d prowled the place restlessly when she’d first arrived, and been relieved to find not only a fabulous shower in the enormous bathroom, but a huge soaking tub, and lovely bath salts and bubblebaths in the etegere beside the tub. Even better, she’d stumbled across a laundry room off the kitchen, so when she’d stripped for her shower, she’d tossed her clothes into the washing machine. Now she was modestly dressed in clean clothes, with clean hair and blissfully clean skin. Ready to take on the world.

Except she had no idea what that world looked like. After arriving back at Cross Photonics – excuse me, _Kanan-Cross_ – Howard Kanan had dodged their questions about what had changed in the time stream since he’d meddled six years earlier. Meddled! Clearly, what Kanan had done was major with a capital M. She just didn’t know what, yet.

She hadn’t noticed any glaring changes on the ride back, but it wasn’t like they’d gone through any heavily populated areas, either. From the refinery to the office, they’d skirted the edge of the city, sticking to open land and then a mostly industrial district – warehouses and manufacturing facilities. There had been the heavier military presence, but that could have been normal. And Vancouver was only one city in one country. Who knew what small ancillary change rippling out from whatever Howard had done – and Evan going to work _with_ Howard? – could have changed something big?

This building had changed, of course. Evan’s company headquarters was stylish in an industrial way. But Kanan had apparently gutted the structure and added several floors to the building. And he’d grafted this residence tower to the corner, and something that looked like an enclosure stretched behind the facility. She was on one of the upper floors in the tower. She felt like Rapunzel, but her hair was nowhere long enough to scale the outer rampart. As prison cells go, it was luxurious and then some. But it wasn’t home, and she was itching to get outside and take a larger world view.

But, the view from this tower apartment was spectacular, and she studied the Vancouver skyline avidly, sensitive to any changes. Hard to tell in the dark, but the general outline seemed to be the same, a shadow against the sky punctuated by lights here and there throughout the high rises. 

There was so much she wanted to know! Instead, she was trapped in this truly lovely apartment with a fully stocked fridge and bar she was reluctant to touch… but what she wanted was the deep claw-footed bath in her own house, a snuggle with Mr. Toad, her iguana, and a good night’s sleep in her own bed.

She just couldn’t understand why they couldn’t have allowed her to go home and get some rest, and come back tomorrow to debrief. How much trouble could she cause on her own overnight?

She was still fretting and pacing – burning a hole in a carpet that no doubt cost more than she’d make in her lifetime – when a soft, unobtrusive ding! heralded the approach of someone – anyone, please! She rushed to the door and called out, “Hello?”

“Miss Weir, it’s Major Leeds,” announced her gentleman caller politely. “May I come in?” 

She swung open the door and practically hugged Ken Leeds, although she was taken aback by the differences in this version. First, he wasn’t a lieutenant but a major, not that she would be able to tell much without a roadmap. His hair was shorter, not so shaggy as “her” Leeds had been, his demeanor not so diffident – there was a sense of steel in his carriage that the other Leeds hadn’t had. A sense of precision and command. She kinda liked it. She was glad to see that he was still part of the team – he’d proved to be a true friend in those last minutes before she, Mac and Evan had chased the albertosaurus back through the anomaly.

He was wearing his dress blues, and there wasn’t a crumb or stain to be found on the crisp uniform. Under his arm, he’d tucked a thick file and his Air Command cover, and a small department store shopping bag, neatly folded. Now he slid out the file and waved it toward the general vicinity of the sitting area. “If I may?”

“You didn’t happen to bring pizza, did you?” she asked as she stepped aside for him to enter and took one step toward the hallway to peer out. Yep, her guard was still there on duty – he nodded congenially toward her and went back to studying a fascinating spot on the opposite wall. She sighed heavily, shrugged at the guard, and closed the door. So much for a breakout.

“Are you hungry, Miss Weir? I was led to believe that this apartment was fully stocked with provisions –“

Even the word for food conjured captivity! “Call me Dylan. Yeah there’s food, but this isn’t my place, and I didn’t feel comfortable just taking – but nothing beats the comfort of an ooey-gooey fresh-from-the-oven slice of pizza. And beer. Gotta have beer.” She sighed again. “Do you suppose anyone delivers here?”

The alarmed expression on his face confused her more than worried her, but she had to admit this Ken Leeds was no slouch in the efficiency department, much like the man she’d known. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number, quizzing her on her preferences, and talking in a quiet voice into to the phone. After a few moments, he looked back at her and smiled. That hadn’t changed; his smile still transformed his face in quite a remarkable way. “Beer and pizza. Right. On its way,” he concluded with a nod.

“My cell phone doesn’t work,” she said quietly, pulling the phone from her pocket and thumbing it on. She showed him the “no service” message. “I thought maybe there was interference from whatever Kanan does in this building, but yours works fine.” 

“What Mr. Kanan does in this building, besides running a frighteningly successful company with Mr. Cross, is something I gather you’re quite familiar with, Miss Weir.”

“Well, of course,” she answered with a smile. “Evan, Toby, Mac and I have been working together for about six months now. I’m the resident predator specialist. And I’m a better shot than Evan,” she added with a cheeky grin.

Leeds flipped open the file and nodded, making a notation. “I see.”

“Yes?” she prompted, letting the flippant attitude bleed away. Brow furrowed, she frowned, trying to figure out Leeds’ opaque expression.

“Well, I understand that the gentleman who’s been providing predator support is an old friend of Mr. Cross’s, but he has expressed concern about continuing in the role. Apparently he’s reaching retirement age, and would like to step down.”

“Tony Drake? Tony Drake’s still alive? That’s wonderful –”

“Yes, Miss Weir, Mr. Drake is definitely still alive. But you see, the problem is … well, there’s really no other way to say it. The problem, Miss Weir, is that you are not.”

“Excuse me?” She definitely wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. He enunciated quite clearly, but the words simply didn’t make sense to her.

“Rather, in this timeline, you were killed in what we now know was a creature incursion five years ago.”

“I’m dead.” She flashed a smile at him, expecting in the next breath that he would chuckle and admit the joke.

“Yes, ma’am.” Serious. Somber even.

“But I’m not.” There, that should set him straight.

“Yes, I can see that. But I also understand there was a lovely funeral. Closed casket, of course. As you’d expect from an incursion, there, ah, there wasn’t much left. Your, um, your other self’s remains were shipped back to your parents’ ranch for interment. I understand your sister accompanied.”  
  


“My parents – no. My sister? No, that can’t be right! I didn’t become involved in the SPG until about six months ago. I’d never heard of anything that hinted of prehistoric predators before then –”

“I assure you, this has all been verified, public record, DNA tissue matching. I can show you the obituary if you like –“

“No, I really don’t need to see that –“

“I read it. It was very complimentary.”

“Thanks. Still,” she shook her head, then sighed, feeling well and truly deflated. Dead! And Mom and Dad had had to mourn her. It just wasn’t right, wasn’t fair. But if she’d learned anything since meeting Evan Cross, the universe and fair weren’t really on speaking terms. 

“I can’t be dead. I just can’t,” she told him desperately. “You know me – we’re friends. I … I just saved your life a few hours ago. When the dino almost ate you …” she trailed off uncertainly.

“Well, thank you. I appreciate the, um, well, I appreciate you doing that. But in this timeline, that never happened. It couldn’t –“

“Because I’m dead,” she finished flatly.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

She felt tears burning her eyes, and scrubbed her fist at her nose and thumbed away a tear impatiently. 

“Does that mean I’m just going to disappear?” she asked quietly, hand covering her mouth nervously. She started to feel panic bubble up, and turned fearful eyes toward the concerned face of Major Ken Leeds.

“I shouldn’t think so,” Leeds said, tilting his head, brow furrowed with worry. “I mean, I’m not a scientist, but I would expect if something like that were going to happen, it would have done so already. So the fact that I’m sitting here talking with you … well, I _think_ you’re safe,” he suggested with a gentle smile.

“You think. But you don’t know.” 

“Not with certainty, no. It’s a rather existential question, don’t you think? No, that doesn’t help, I’m sure. I believe you’re safe. I’ll do everything I can to make you safe,” he vowed in that quiet way of his.

She sat there, nodding, letting the tears run freely, arms folded, hands holding her elbows close to her body while she cried quietly.

He put aside the pen and the file and his hand reached out, hovering a few inches away from her arm. “Ms. Weir, is there anything I can do?” he offered softly.

“You’ll just have to come up with a cover story,” she replied, sniffling, dragging her hand across her nose. Oh, that was attractive, she thought incongruously.

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of witness protection, creating a new identity. I could be an opportunity for you –”

“No. I _have_ a life, friends, a house. I’m in the middle of a reno that’s taken me over a year to do! I have an iguana!” She was panicking now, feeling breathless and disoriented. This really could _not_ be happening.

“Miss Weir, I realize this is a shock, but the fact is you don’t exist here. That life ended five years ago, in a fairly grizzly and decidedly permanent way. The person who was you in this timeline is gone. Your friends and family have mourned you. That house is owned by someone else. And your iguana … well, I’m sure he’s made a budding young herpetologist a fine friend.”

“In my timeline, you were busted down to lieutenant. What did you do?” she demanded suddenly, changing the topic to a non-sequitor that nonetheless had always intrigued her, buying herself some time to “process” as the Americans said.

“I think it’s more accurate to say in this timeline, what didn’t I do? Or perhaps it’s as simple as what didn’t I get caught at,” he answered with a hint of a smile. “It’s all a matter of context. Does that help?”

“Okay,” she exhaled slowly, staring into the middle ground as she thought and tried to calm herself. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“We just met, Ms. Weir. I understand we knew each other in your timeline, but in mine, you’re a stranger. At least right now. Perhaps at a future date. Which reminds me, I do have something more for you.” He handed her the shopping bag. “A change of clothes. Mr. Kanan guessed your size. If you need anything else, just let me know, Ms. Weir.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit intimate, and yet you keep calling me ‘Ms. Weir’?” she asked, shaking her head as she accepted the bag and peered inside.

“I think I’m merely acceding to a request made to make you more comfortable, Ms. Weir. And what you said before – this _is_ your place. Unless you’d prefer a different view – I understand there are other available flats. Mr. Kanan – and I – want you to feel comfortable here.”

“Comfortable,” she repeated, setting the bag aside. Her mind was racing, skittering away from her in all directions of possibilities. Of all the possible scenarios, she knew that one thing was true. “I can’t be comfortable staying in this building my entire life. I can’t live 24-7 with a guard at my door. And I am _not_ going to let my parents believe I’m dead when I’m not –“

“ _Their_ daughter _is_ dead. What would be the benefit of trying to step into someone else’s life?” And besides –”

“You’ll have to resurrect me.” As the words left her lips and hung in the air between them, she knew they had the ring of truth. Suddenly panic shifted to excitement.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ll have to resurrect me. Not like a zombie, but like … like the _Six Million Dollar Man_. That’s it – say that my injuries were so devastating, I was part of an experiment for … oh, I know – tissue regeneration!” She was getting jazzed about the idea, wild ideas spinning in her head. “Um, I’ve been in cryostasis – you know, like all those scifi movies where people go into space for years? Only no aliens – I always hated that chest-burster scene, ugh,” she shuddered. “Yes! And I’ve been in there for the past five years while the experiment was running. My parents knew I wanted my body to go to science. It would make perfect sense. And it wasn’t completely successful, you know – revival. Not quite right. And that’s why my memory is a bit wonky.” She looked at him like he was slow on the uptake, but he simply winced and shook his head.

“Except that technology doesn’t exist.”

“Yet.” 

“Mr. Kanan is a brilliant man. And Mr. Cross … well, Mr. Cross is _scary_ smart. But …”

“You’re no slouch yourself, Major …” she replied, nodding encouragingly. His eyebrows arched upward at that and she felt a tiny flame of victory ignite within her. Plus, Ken Leeds was definitely cute, and as he seemed to puzzle out whether or not she was actually flirting with him, she kind of thought, why the hell not? But that was a project for another day. Right now, she had to convince him that this was the great idea that it was.

“It may be simpler than creating an identity from scratch, but I’m not sure what Canada Revenue would have to say about it …”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t care, so long as I paid my taxes. Oooh, I’d owe back taxes, wouldn’t I?”

“I’ve no doubt Mr. Kanan would cover any costs,” he mused, catching his lower lip between his teeth.

“You’re warming to the idea, aren’t you?” she asked, a grin starting to spread across her lips.

He considered the idea for a moment, then shrugged. “I’ll run it up the flagpole with Mr. Kanan and see what he has to say. It’s unorthodox. There can be no publicity about this – no big media splash –”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Major Leeds,” she replied with a hint of triumph in her voice. “I’m a private person at heart, I just don’t want to be erased. Not really, and not legally.”

He opened his mouth and snapped it shut again. “Well, I’ll see what I can do.” Just then, the doorbell rang – or rather pinged in its subtle and unobtrusive way. “Ah. Your pizza,” he said, smiling. “And beer.”

“That was fast – I want that number –”

“It’s the tower caterer. The kitchen is on call 24-7.”

“Oh. Care to stay for dinner? And Major Leeds, if we’re going to be working together, I really think it’s time you started calling me ‘Dylan’, don’t you?” she added, trying one last time with an encouraging smile.

&&&

Evan Cross propped his face up on a fist and stared down at the dozing face of his wife, and sighed softly. With the back of his free hand, he softly traced the line of her jaw, reveling in the feel of her. The scent of her. The sight of her, naked and tousled under the crisp white sheet, whole, vibrant, and very much here and now. Not a memory or a fever dream. If he let himself, he could believe the past six years were a bad dream, the result of spoiled sushi or tainted meat, rather than the reality that had informed his every waking moment.

That first kiss had quickly escalated into a need neither one of them could contain, and she hadn’t bothered to turn the laptop off when she’d dragged him from the office and to the apartment they shared at the top of the residence tower. They’d barely spoken beyond breathed endearments as clothes had become too much for either of them to bear. Their lovemaking had been tender, urgent, and eminently satisfying. With the exception of that brief period with Ange, Evan had lived the past six years as a monk. As he watched Brooke drowse next to him in that floaty post-coital netherworld, he was glad he hadn’t gotten involved with anyone else. The sadly pathetic existence he’d known in his original timeline seemed oddly romantic now that he had her back in his life.

She stirred, and he reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder, steadying her, calming her. Like he used to do. Just letting her know he was there, and she’d fall back to sleep, safe, secure. She buried her face into the pillow, then stretched, smiling, her eyes still closed in lazy satisfaction.

“Now I understand why there’s an apartment tower attached to the office,” he murmured through a smile. And not a little satisfaction of his own. He leaned down to kiss her lightly on the nose.

“Hmm,” she agreed, shifting her face to look up at him through half-closed eyes. “Not the reason and you know it.” She rolled over onto her back and raised her arms over her head, luxuriating in the stretch. “You and Howard had to be close to your precious anomalies. If you hadn’t built this tower, you would have been sleeping in your office half the time.”

“Yeah, I’ve been guilty of that a time or two. Or three,” he shrugged, sliding down off his fist to stretch out beside her, circling her in his arms. She tucked her head under his chin, and sighed contentedly. He kissed the top of her head and pressed his cheek against her hair, running his hand up and down her forearm. “So … we never took advantage of proximity for any … afternoon delight?” he whispered to her.

She stiffened in his arms, and he immediately realized his mistake. Too soon to remind her that he didn’t remember because he hadn’t been here. Wasn’t “her” Evan. “Sorry,” he told her, pulling his hands away and rolling back to put some space between them.

She sat up and shook her head self-consciously. “No, no, don’t be.” A sharp intake of breath, followed by a slow exhalation. Arms over her head, then pushing palms down with her fingers interlaced. Relaxation exercise. Unbidden, a smile leapt to his lips; he’d seen her do just this thing countless times, and always enjoyed the way her muscles rippled under her skin, the graceful flow of her arms, the nearly visible way she drew in energy and grounded herself. She rolled her head and, letting the bones in her neck pop into place. One more deep breath through her nose, and she was done.

She glanced over her shoulder at him and frowned. “What?”

Evan shook his head, chuckling softly. “Just remembering other days like this,” he said, running his knuckle gently down her arm. She sighed and settled back against him, taking his right arm and wrapping it around her shoulders and twining her fingers with his.

He closed his eyes and gave in to the moment, simply enjoying the feel of her resting comfortably in his arms. Evan had only an inkling what it must feel like to say goodbye to someone you love, only to have them return a completely different person. In his timeline, he’d simply lost Brooke, and he’d had the clean break of loss to define his actions. There was a simplicity to his loss.

“There’s no rule book for this,” he whispered against her hair, kissed it lightly. “I understand, really I do. It’s going to take time,” he soothed her, touching her arm and sliding his hand down to her elbow, and then capturing her other hand in his. Her fingers wound in and out of his as he spoke, creating a sensation that was oddly sensual and intimate. “Y’gotta know, even though I lost you six years ago in my timeline, I’ve never stopped loving you, Brooke. I could kill Howard for screwing up time, but having you here right now … I wouldn’t change a thing.” 

She pulled his right arm closer around her, stroking his palm and tracing his lifeline with her fingertip. Her thumb massaged the depression around the base of his ring finger, pausing over the callus formed where the ring had rubbed every day until only a couple of months ago.

“Yeah,” he breathed, frowning. “I left it on the other side. I’m sorry. I thought it was time.” He closed his fingers over hers. “Maybe … maybe I can get a new one. Maybe _we_ could get new ones. A vow renewal ceremony. Or am I getting ahead of myself?”

She turned her head and looked at him then, really looked at him, tears forming and glittering in her eyes. The transformation on her face was heartbreaking – it seemed in that moment, she truly understood the abyss that had opened up for him six years ago in that basement. And in her expression, he thought he saw a glimmer of redemption.

Her chin crumpled as the tears spilled and fell unbidden down her cheeks. She rolled over in his arms and held his face in her hands, pressing her forehead to his. He felt tears trace warm trails down his cheeks – hers and his own. “Brooke –” he began, but she cut him off with a kiss. He felt like she was trying to breathe him in, absorb him into herself. When she broke off the kiss, he was gasping for breath.

“Oh, Evan! I’m so sorry – I’m feeling sorry for myself because you can’t remember, and here you’ve been by yourself all this time.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him close. He breathed in her hair, pressing his face into the silkiness of it. “Baby, we’re together now. We’ll make our own memories,” she added, kissing him fiercely. He returned the favor, happy to once again lose himself in the reality of the woman in his arms. 

&&&


	2. June 10, 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day ... the Cross Photonics team has had a chance to clean up and get some rest, and now they're ready to face this new world. At least, they think so.

**June 10, 2012**

“I’m sorry, you know.” Howard Kanan paused to pour freshly squeezed orange juice into Dylan’s glass. “More coffee?” he raised the pot and wiggled it suggestively.

She shook her head, taking a bite of her breakfast. Omigod, it was amazing. She was going to get fat! First there was the terrific pizza and beer feast with Ken Leeds – and yes, he’d finally invited her to call him Ken, and he’d finally, finally! agreed to call her Dylan. Then, even though she’d showered, she’d had a long soak in the massive tub in her suite, followed by an outstanding night’s sleep in a very comfy bed. 

And she was still here, in the bright light of day, ten toes, ten fingers, a nose that worked and could take in the aromas of a wonderful breakfast, and a mouth that could enjoy it even more. She felt solid. She felt permanent. She’d just have to believe she was. _Et cogito ergo sum_. That would have to be her mantra. I think. Therefore I am.

She was an up-with-the-dawn type, and every so often, she’d meet up with Evan for a run. Mac preferred working out with calisthenics and weight training, so it was rare to see him on the trail. This morning, she hadn’t seen any sign of either of them, and she was feeling adrift. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Howard Kanan was an early riser, too, and she’d been all too happy to accept his invitation to join him for breakfast. All too happy to have someone see her, confirm she was still here. 

Now they were here in his office, with a fabulous meal. The day streamed in through the massive windows, bathing everything in light, like an act of purification.

She could get used to this, if it weren’t for that little problem of being held captive. And the extra pounds she’d pack on. She was definitely going to have to check out the gym facilities. Fortunately, when Mr. Kanan had come knocking, he’d also told the guard to stand down, which meant she didn’t feel like she was being quarantined any longer. But no one had told her she was free to go yet, either.

“Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for, Mr. Kanan? I mean, other than changing history.” She smiled brightly at him to indicate no hard feelings, then took another bite of her meal. Delicious!

“Please, call me Howard. And may I call you Dylan?” She nodded assent, chewing eagerly. “Well, Dylan. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you.”

She smiled encouragingly at him and swallowed. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, Howard. How could it have been?”

“Thanks, but it doesn’t change the fact that I feel it was. When I rejoined my time stream – back right after the point we met, actually – it was already too late. I should have told Evan to look for you when I saved him from the albertosaurus, but there was so little time. I didn’t think to write it down. My other self, he didn’t know about you, didn’t know to look for you and keep you safe. You’d already been, well, dead, for nearly five years by the time I started to piece together everything that had changed in the meantime.” At the pleasantly blank look she gave him while she chewed, he ducked his head and laughed at himself. “Yeah, listen to me nattering on about jumping around in time and probabilities and time streams … it’s all too wild, huh? Let’s just say that I didn’t anticipate every eventuality, and the you that should have been here got caught in the crossfire.”

She smiled gently at him, put down her fork, and patted his arm. “It’s okay. I understand the basics of temporal causality.” At his surprise, she grinned broadly. “Gotta have something to talk about when you’re stuck on the wrong side of an anomaly with a predator in between you and safety. I’ve been teaching Evan about evolution and prehistoric biology. Think of it as a cultural exchange.”

“Yeah, I can see Evan thinking that’s fun chat material.” He nodded to himself, chuckling. “I gotta say … you’re crafty _and_ spunky. Leeds told me about your idea. I like it. One small problem, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Technology doesn’t exist to do what you suggested.”

“That’s what he said. So?”

“So-o-o, we put that story out there, people are going to want to see the tech, see the data. It doesn’t exist.”

“Proprietary data.”

“Okay. Why you?”

“I donated my body to science,” she answered simply, taking a sip of her orange juice.

“Cool. I don’t know if I want to be known as Dr. Frankenstein, though.”

“Off the books research by one of your scientists?” she suggested, helping herself to another slice of bacon.

“Promising,” he replied, tilting back in his chair and lacing his fingers together over his mid-section. He considered the idea for a moment, and nodded slowly. Finally, he dropped his chair back down and turned toward her, grinning. “Yeah, we could work with that. Found the tech with you in it. Scientist long gone, records deleted. Yeah, this could work. Don’t like the idea of someone conning me, but this is a big facility, and there are lots of labs. In fact, we have lots of facilities, lots of labs, all over the world. And we’ve funded research by others over the years. Yeah, this could definitely work – took back control of a research project that was abandoned, found the tech. We revived you, but your memory was damaged in the process – nice touch, that, good cover.” 

“I am a predator specialist, after all. Animal behaviorist. It’s all about strategy.” She smiled at him, and then her expression became pensive. Finally, she asked, “Who else did we lose?”

“What, since we embarked on this grand adventure? A few people, hopefully fewer ‘civilians’ than in your timeline. We brought Project Magnet in early. We started developing the tech to detect anomalies sooner, based on Evan’s designs. The anomaly team always has a military backup.”

“And today?” she asked the question quietly, afraid of the answer she might get.

“You mean, was there someone else on the team when they went through?” he replied just as quietly. He shook his head. “No. Just Mac and Evan, chasing a great honking scorpion. They took it out, and when they were coming back through the spaghetti junction, the albertosaurus crossed through.”

“So … Toby. Toby wasn’t stung? Wasn’t dying from Brontoscorpion venom?”

“Nance?” He barked a laugh. “No! No. She doesn’t go in the field. She’s one of Evan’s cybergeeks, she never leaves the Tank. Hell, if she went outside, she’d bust into flames. No, like I told you last night, she’s fine. But I didn’t realize you’d been through that on the other side. I’m sorry.”

Dylan relaxed at that, letting out her held breath in a slow whoosh. “That’s good then,” she smiled gently. “I’d hate to think anyone … died, for want of a better term … because we came through.”

“Probabilities are impossible to calculate with certainty – too many variables not only out of our control, but unobservable. But among our team, today, no.”

“And for those of us who didn’t have a living counterpart in this timeline …?”

“Leeds told me about your concerns. You’re a paradox, but you exist. You appear stable. We can do cellular tests to confirm, but the evidence of my senses tells me you’re real and you’re here to stay.” He reached out and took her hand in his, squeezing tightly and smiling encouragingly. Then he patted her hand and went back to his breakfast.

Dylan nodded, and masked the tears that threatened to well up by taking a bite of waffle. She stuffed more in her mouth than she should have, and it took her a moment to chew through it all.

“Well, I like a woman with appetites,” Howard commented with a chuckle, taking a sip of his OJ. 

She covered her lips with her hand and giggled behind it. “Sorry. You’d think I hadn’t eaten for a week. This is so good,” she added with enthusiasm. She took a deep breath and asked, “Do you always chase the anomalies yourself? I mean you’re the head of a big company –“

“ _Biggest_. Biggest company on the planet,” he corrected her with a cheeky grin. “And I’m not the only head. Evan and I are partners. He chases anomalies, why not me?”

“But you don’t,” she corrected him, glancing around his office. 

“You just got here, you can’t know that,” he said, tilting his head to the side and considering her curiously.

“I do,” she countered. “Look, Evan’s office was always abandoned. Neat enough, but his computer was full of half-finished ideas and incomplete projects. It drove Ange insane.”

“You mean it was driving his business bankrupt. It would have to. It’s where I was at when you found me – there was nothing left of my company, I was living off patent royalties. It’s where he was headed.”

“Yes. Yes, I think he was, unfortunately. But you … you finish things. You’re _here_ enough to finish things.”

“Smart lady. I told you I liked you. Yes. Evan takes the risks. He’s wired that way. But our partnership provides him with the support he needs to do that. And he doesn’t have quite the same desperate need, I think. Didn’t. He did it for a different reason. And I occasionally visit the hot sites, or the interesting ones. But yesterday, I had to be there.”

“Because you knew. Knew that the day was coming.”

“Knew it would have to. I was on the other side of it, on the other side of the anomaly. I knew yesterday was the day, the date, if it was going to happen.” He sighed, closing his eyes. Then lifting his chin and opening his eyes to take in the vista of the ceiling, he added, “So whatever implications and consequence there are or were from what I did in the past, they’re done. They’re here. And they’re here to stay. Like you.”

&&&

For the first time in six years, Evan awoke to the sensation of his wife in his arms, instead of from the dream that she was still with him. He smiled deeply, breathing in the scent of her, stretching languorously and tightening his hold around her. She stirred, hand sliding up his chest to curl around his neck. It felt so good to feel her body molding to his, he could easily ignore the little drool trail she’d left on his chest. He snickered softly at the thought.

“Hmmph-mmphng,” she greeted, raising her head from his chest, hair sticking out in all directions, some of it plastered to her face. Her eyes were mostly closed, and she’d be horrified that he was seeing her this way, but he didn’t care. The homeliness of her dishevelment only made him happier. She propped her chin on his chest and scrabbled at her hair to clear it out of her face. Running her tongue over her teeth, she grimaced and covered her mouth with her hand. “Morning,” she said more intelligibly. “Ugh, time to get up.”

“Well, if I remember what Howard told me right, I’m one of the bosses, right?” She nodded dully. “So, as boss, I could declare this a holiday, right?” 

She raised an eyebrow and looked at him blearily. Fact was, they might have started in the late afternoon, but they’d kept going a good part of the evening and night, talking and making love, pausing for a midnight snack before starting all over again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had that much stamina … no, university, when he and Brooke had first met. And that made sense because everything felt like it was the first time all over again. And this time, this time there were monsters, but he knew they were out there, knew how to protect her. 

He knew he was going to pay the price later for last night, but for now … right now he was happy for the first time in six years.

“That would be nice,” she was saying, still holding her fingers over her mouth. “But I’ve got to finish that proposal. The one I was working on when you so … nicely interrupted me,” she added, running her other hand over his chest as she lifted herself up.

“Yeah, but, if I’m boss …” he said suggestively.

“You can’t change the deadline, I’m afraid.” She was sitting up now, holding the sheet over her chest with one hand, and covering her unbrushed teeth with the other. “I need to shower. And brush my teeth. I feel like one of Leeds’ troop carriers parked there overnight.”

He reached for her, but she shook her head. “Seriously, Evan. This one’s important.”

He was disappointed, but he was also curious now. “What’s the proposal for?”

“Land reclamation in the Sudan. A kind of terraforming project to improve the arability of depleted land there.”

“Whoa, that is important. And we’re –“

“Bidding for the contract with the World Health Organization and the UN. It could be huge, both in scope and impact.” She placed her hand in the middle of his chest and sighed deeply. “Rain check?”

“Rain check,” he accepted, closing his hand over hers briefly. Then he ran his tongue over his teeth and made a face too. “I need to shower and a toothbrush, too – I can join you –“

She shook her head. “I’ll never get to work then,” she smiled at him. “There’s a … a guest bathroom down the hall. It’s fully stocked. For guests.”

“Yeah, that’s where you’d put them,” he agreed, smiling. She got out of bed, and padded naked to the en suite bathroom. In a moment, he could hear the shower running. Still laying there, he shook his head and asked, “How did we get into _bio_ tech?” He got up and padded out of the room, pausing just outside the doorway to get his bearings. 

He trotted down the hallway to find the guest bathroom and was thrilled to find a brand new toothbrush still in the package. Score! While brushing his teeth, he poked around the bathroom until he found a razor, shaving cream, soap and shampoo, plus a couple of nice cushy towels. Spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing his mouth, he stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself for the first time since coming back through the anomaly.

He didn’t look any different than he had yesterday. He was still the same man. Kinda tired, but nowhere near as sad. Or tense. Still the same face, just a day older. And yet for him, the world had turned inside out. He hoped for the better. Right now, it felt like it couldn’t get any better.

He stepped into the shower and let the hot, steamy water sluice over his tired, aching muscles, washing away the dust of other times and places, the grime of the last couple of days, the pain and confusion of the past six years. The heat started to unknot muscles that had been tight for so long they’d calcified. He leaned into the water stream, willing himself to uncoil. Resting his forearms against the shower wall, he stretched his arms up over his head, palms pressed against the tiles. And then he started to laugh.

The laughter bubbled up from his toes, fizzing through his blood, rocking him to his core as he lifted his face to the water and felt it stream into his mouth and eyes. The laughter came in waves, shaking him with its ferocity, as years of hurt and fear splintered and tumbled into the roiling drain.

He pushed away from the shower head wall and leaned back against the side wall, grabbing his sides as the laughter continued to wrack his body convulsively. 

In his wildest fantasies, he’d never allowed himself to imagine this, to imagine being reunited with Brooke. Not in this life. The one thing he’d sworn should never be done, changing the timeline, had been the one thing that could deliver him from the lost soul he’d become, the hell that his life had become.

But it really was over now. Wasn’t it? 

He slid slowly down the wall to rest on the shower floor, his knees drawn up to his chin, and he wrapped his arms around his legs and rocked. Rocked with the laughter, rocked with the tears that began to flow in earnest. He buried his face in the cross of his arms, wept so long and hard that he felt he had no more tears to give.

At last, he raised his head and stared down at the drain, watching the swirl of water mixed with his own tears. And at last, he felt washed clean of the past. He’d made his deal with the devil, and the devil be damned. He thanked God, the God of scientists and probabilities, of fools and dreamers. This was his world now, no going back.

His legs were wobbly when he finally turned off the shower, and feeling clean at last, stepped out of the surround. That’s when he realized he didn’t have any clean clothes of his own – and the ones he’d stripped out of last night weren’t worth putting back on, even temporarily. He smacked himself on the forehead. Of course. His alt-self lived here – there would be plenty of clothes to pick from, assuming that his other-timeline self didn’t have really bad taste like bow ties and red high tops. He’d just have to ask Brooke to help him get dressed … assuming that didn’t further delay the start of her day, he added to himself with a smile.

Wrapping a fluffy towel around his mid-section, and scrubbing another over his hair to get the worst of the drips under control, he opened the door and suddenly found himself in another bedroom. Ah, Jack and Jill bathroom, opening on the hall and a bedroom. And what a room.

Feeling like he was sneaking around the way he’d done when he’d visit Brooke’s dorm room back in university, he crept on tiptoe into the room, letting out a low whistle. Nice digs. He was enjoying the sensation of just playing around, of doing something vaguely illicit as he poked around this space that was his but not his. He hadn’t really noticed much about the apartment when he and Brooke had come up yesterday – his faculties had been wholly focused elsewhere, he remembered deliciously. But looking around, he realized that if he’d ever taken the time to decorate a space, it would have looked very much like this – dark woods and subdued colors, leather furniture accented by metallic fabrics in copper and bronze. Cozy, warm, sensual. He could see a hint of natural light coming through the slit between the lush draperies, a laser line of brilliance. But the room wasn’t dark, it was just … rich. And so unlike the utilitarian office Ange had designed for him so long ago, in another world. 

Wait, this was exactly the kind of room he’d design for himself. What if that’s exactly what he did? Rather, his alt-self had done.

He looked around more closely, and realized that the bed hadn’t been properly made – the bedclothes were pulled into position, but they hadn’t been smoothed down by an expert hand. So hastily made, probably because of an emergency exit. The anomaly. 

He went to the closet and immediately had his suspicions further confirmed. All the clothes were his style, his size. Ditto the shoes. The dresser revealed underwear – clean, thank goodness – in his size, and his favorite brand. This had been _his_ room, not just a guest room. He and Brooke had separate bedrooms? That didn’t make sense, not the way she talked about kissing his alt-self goodbye yesterday –

And that’s when he noticed it, sitting tossed aside in a junk tray, forgotten and disregarded. He picked up the wedding band and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, hefting the familiar weight. Feeling the nick in the metal where he’d slammed a car door on it during their honeymoon. He closed his eyes and cradled it in his hand, feeling all the years together rush back at him like a warm tide. This ring was precious to him, and he’d been devastated to find himself on this side of the anomaly without it.

Why was it still here, when Alt-Evan had gone through the anomaly yesterday?

He took the time to get dressed, recognizing the clothing as his own as it slid on easily and fit him perfectly. This wasn’t just a room where he stayed once in a while – this had been his room, separate from Brooke’s. This was where his other self had lived.

Fully dressed, he hefted the ring in one hand, a leather jacket very like his favorite in the other, and went back through the bathroom to the hallway and Brooke’s room.

She was coming out of the bathroom, showered, dressed and ready to take on the day. She was dragging a comb through her hair, and looked up smiling at him as he came into the room. As she took in the clothes he was wearing, and the ring his was holding up between thumb and forefinger, her smile faded, replaced instead by a dawning worry and a furrow between her eyebrows.

“Were you going to tell me? Or were you planning for me to stumble across this on my own? You know, like I did.”

She took a steadying breath and licked her lips. “I lost something, too, Evan. I don’t know why, but we just stopped. Just stopped working. We didn’t have anything to talk about that wasn’t work, wasn’t anomalies, or inventions, or some project. Other than that, we lived in silence.” She sat down in the chair near her bed, absently put on her shoes, picked up her watch and put that on as well.

“Why live together then, why put yourself through that?”

“We were the tech community’s darlings. PR thought it would be bad for business, bad for the philanthropic work, to split up. We were frigging celebrities. The loving couple who’d remade the world with photonic technology. So we kept up the pretense for the sake of the company. And I kept hoping …”

“Did he cheat on you?”

“No. No it wasn’t like that. And no, I didn’t cheat on him. We just … broke the bond,” she said sadly, toying with her own wedding ring. “Things had been … cool, I guess, for about a year. He was busy with projects, I was busy with the philanthropy. But we weren’t fighting or not getting along – we were just busy. Then one day, a few months ago – about six, I guess – we seemed to be happy, okay. We woke up that morning, and we were okay, I swear we were. He left on an anomaly emergency, and when he came back that night … he just … it’s like something shut off. I don’t know. He started working really late, later than he’d ever done, wouldn’t come in until three, four o’clock. He said he had an important project he had to finish, that he had to do it while he was … while he was still here. Started sleeping in the guest room, if he came home at all – more than once, he slept in his office. Then later, he just moved in there.”

Slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed, sinking into the deep pile of the comforter haphazardly thrown aside. “Six months ago,” Evan repeated, his mind casting back to what was going on in his own time stream then. Six months ago he’d met Dylan. Lost Tony Blake to a Utahraptor. Confirmed the existence of reoccurring anomalies – crossed through one! Seen his first creature. Met Connor Temple. Six months ago, the world had tilted on its axis and changed irrevocably for him. It was safe to assume that most if not all of those events had occurred in this timeline. Which one was the tipping point? “What happened six months ago?” he asked, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t get him to tell me.” She shook her head and stared down at her hands. “He just shut me out.”

“He said nothing, not about meeting someone, learning something new? Seeing something he’d never seen before? Nothing?”

She shook her head. “No. What are you getting at?”

“When did he first confirm the existence of the anomalies? First start measuring –“

“We saw the first anomaly six years ago. Right after that, Evan went to see Howard, and they formed their partnership. Howard started pulling together the funding for the photonics launch, and Evan started putting together his anomaly detection tech.” She paused to think for a moment. “He chased them for a couple of years before he finally found one stable enough to measure – he and Tony always seemed to be too late, missed them. But once he found one that was open and active, he was able to collect enough data to refine the technology, take it in new directions. Some of what he developed had commercial uses, too. He and Howard and Toby have been tweaking the tech ever since.”

“So, everything hasn’t followed the same sequence of events I experienced,” Evan said quietly. “I only got to see my first stable anomaly since … well, since I lost you, about six months ago. So what triggered the change?” he added, more to himself than to her. This was important, he knew. He couldn’t imagine a world in which he wouldn’t love Brooke, and for his other self to have simply turned away from her one day … something _huge_ had to have happened.

He rubbed his hand across his lips and chin. “Did you still love him? Do you?”

She smiled sadly, a tear slipping out of her eye unnoticed. “I did. I … I love the idea of him. The memory of him. What we had together, how we started this company together with Howard. The plans we had and the dreams we promised each other.”

The memory of him. Was that what Evan loved – the memory of Brooke? Or did he still love Brooke herself? This Brooke?

“Where does that leave us?” he asked, tears in his voice and in his eyes.

“I don’t know. I’d like to think we’ve got a chance to get it right. I hope so – being with you has been … I can’t remember the last time I was this happy,” she told him earnestly. “This,” she gestured between them with her hand, “this makes me happy. Just talking. Sitting in the same room. Knowing you’re here.”

He understood what she meant; just knowing she was alive and in the same world as he made all the difference. He lowered his eyes to stare at his hands, at the ring on his left hand. He turned the right slowly, gathering his thoughts. “Are you … willing … to try again, with me?” He raised his face to look at her, eager and fearful of what he’d find.

She stared at him for a long, silent moment, tears falling unnoticed as she did so. Finally she said, “Whatever happened to bring you to me, I don’t care what you call it. I call it a miracle. Yes.” Licking her lips nervously, she stood suddenly, crossed the space between them, and holding his face in her hands, kissed him as fiercely as he’d kissed her the day before.

He started to lean back, pulling her with him back onto the bed, when he heard an insistent thrum sounding all around them. She broke off the kiss immediately, touching her fingertips to her lips regretfully. Awkwardly, she righted herself, and stood before him, smoothing down her skirt.

“What the hell’s that?” Evan demanded breathlessly.

“Anomaly alarm,” she told him simply, all business now. She was dabbing at her eyes with the tissue. “The whole tower is wired with them. You’d better get down to the Tank.”

“We need to talk –“

“We’ll have time.” She shook her head and turned away, a fresh wave of tears starting. “We’ve said more today that he and I have said in six months. I don’t know why we weren’t working anymore. We just … disconnected.” As Evan shrugged on his jacket, she grabbed his arm and looked directly in his eyes. “If we’re going to make this work, you have to promise me – you’ll always talk to me. Don’t go silent.”

He paused to grip her shoulders in his hands, pulled her close, and touched his lips to her forehead. “I promise,” he assured her, knowing that he truly believed he would keep that promise. He wondered briefly if his other self had ever believed the same thing, but shoved the thought aside. He would keep the promise.

She reached up to touch his cheek with her fingertips, and smiled. “Then I’ll see you later. There’s breakfast in the kitchen – at least get some coffee, something to eat before you go.”

“Okay, if you’re sure? When I get back, maybe we could go out for dinner, get away from this place?”

“Okay. I’d like that,” she agreed, her smile becoming less strained and more natural. “Go.”

&&&

“So. You’re Alt-Evan,” Toby Nance said, sizing Evan Cross up with a glance as he trotted down the stairs and into the Special Projects Group space, affectionately called “the Tank,” the nerve center of Kanan-Cross’s anomaly center. Detection, containment, and study, those were the Tank’s purposes in life. And it was Toby’s purpose in life to keep it all humming safely, accurately, and stylishly.

Alt-Evan stopped up short and stared at her for a long moment. It was really only a split second, but it seemed like forever for confusion to morph into comprehension “No,” he answered, resuming his entrance at a more sedate pace. He was freshly washed, freshly pressed, and looking mighty pleased with himself. In fact, he was way more relaxed looking than Toby could remember seeing him in a long, long time. If she swung that way, she’d be very interested in this in-command, uber-cute Evan making his way over to her personal nerve center.

“Well, you’re not the Evan that went through the anomaly yesterday – you even brought friends with you, I understand. So from this timeline’s perspective, _Alt_. You’re Alt-Evan.” She turned back to the computer screen and tapped a few keys to tighten the focus of the detector.

“Nope,” he insisted, reaching across her keyboard to tap a few more keys. The signal clarified to crystal.

“So you’re the exact same person who went through yesterday. So tell me what I had for breakfast yesterday.”

“How the hell would I know? I’m not your Mom.”

“Actually that’s the right answer, but I’m still not convinced.” She glanced down and saw the wedding band on his right hand. “And seeing that, I’m definitely not convinced.” She nodded toward the ring.

He held up the hand and looked at the wedding band, fingered it, turning it around on his ring finger. He looked at her as though he was deciding something. Whatever it was, he passed, and said instead, “I’m not Alt. I’m Prime.”  
  


“No. That’s not the way I heard it –”

“Getting tired of hearing that. I’m Prime. Get over it. I’ll tell you about it someday. What do we got?”

&&&

Evan was studying the readings when he heard something heavy scraping down the stairs. Thud, scrape. Thud, scrape. He looked up and glanced, frowning, at Toby. She shrugged and shook her head, her own brow furrowed.

“What the frak?” Toby whispered, leaning in toward Evan. 

“Anybody there?” Evan called warily, his hand moving to push Toby behind him, the reflex to protect kicking in without thinking. He shifted sideways, sliding past her to peer out into the walkway.

“Only me,” came a tired-sounded British voice. Another thud, another scrape, a muttered curse. Then zombie-like shuffling.

“Mac?” called Evan, taking a couple of steps toward the shuffling noise. “What the hell happened to you?”

Mac Rendell trudged wearily into view, looking rumpled and worn. His skin was ashen under his Middle Eastern complexion, his stubble was thicker than usual, and his eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. “Don’t ask.”

“You know we’ve gotta know now, Rendell,” Toby declared, ducking under Evan’s arm to ogle Mac. “You don’t come into _my_ house all Walking Dead and not share.”

“Yeah, man, whatever you were drinkin’, count me out. You look like crap,” Evan announced, then turned back to the console.

“Seriously, what fragged your ass?” Toby demanded, planting her fists on her hips and glaring at Mac.

“Tobes, not now,” Mac begged, stumbling his way to her and draping his arms over her shoulders in a sloppy hug. “I’m _so_ happy to see you. I’m so happy you’re not dead!”

“Um, Mac –“ Evan started, pointing ineffectually toward Mac’s tentacle monster impression.

“Get. Him. Off. Me!” Toby screeched through her gritted teeth, eyes scrunched closed, her hands balled into fists held rigidly at her sides.

Evan nearly tripped over his feet trying to get over to where Mac enveloped Toby’s shoulders. “C’mon, Tiger, let’s get you some coffee,” he suggested, peeling Mac away from Toby and leading him over to the couch. Evan spun him around and dropped him down. 

“What the hell, Rendell? What don’t you understand about personal space?” Toby demanded, glaring at Mac as he crumpled on the couch.

Mac looked up at her, sunglasses still in place, his jaw slack, and his lips parted in shock. Evan shot a quick glance at Toby and back to Mac, sizing up the situation. Keeping his eyes on Mac, he asked, “Hey, Toby, think you could rustle up some coffee for our zombie friend here?”

“Yeah, sure, but just this once, right? I’m nobody’s waitress, not since I quit that gig back in high school. The tips sucked, and the customers were worse,” she shot over her shoulder, making her way across the Tank toward the coffee bar.

Glancing toward her back, Evan dropped down beside Mac on the couch and demanded, “What the hell is wrong, man?”

“She doesn’t remember me. She doesn’t know me,” Mac rasped, tears in his voice as he watched Toby fixing the coffee. “Not like she did.”

Evan sighed deeply and squeezed Mac’s shoulder. “Shit. I’m sorry – it’s a tough break, man. But at least she’s okay. She’s here and she’s safe and healthy. You’ll win her over. Toby’s better with you as her friend. Trust me, I know.”

Toby made her way back to the sitting area, carrying a steaming mug that she shoved into Mac’s hands. “You sure we shouldn’t be administering this by infusion? There’s a cute researcher on the third floor I wouldn’t mind calling,” she suggested saucily, but Evan favored her with a sour shake of his head while Mac gingerly sipped at the coffee. 

Mac looked up at them and shook his head. “I’m not hung over, y’know,” Mac corrected, pulling the glasses down to sit to the bridge of his nose. He looked up at them both, and Evan was struck at the bruised looking shadows under Mac’s eyes.

“Then what the hell’s wrong with you, Mac?”

“All night poker game.”

“Ah,” Toby said knowingly, a grin slowly spreading across her face. “About damned time!” She heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness – I was afraid you’d never get over that whole stalker vibe thing. Well, not you-you, but, I guess Prime-you.”

“Come again?” Evan and Mac asked in unison, while Evan looked down at her curiously.

“The Mac that was here yesterday, not _this_ Mac. Every night the security team holds a floating poker game – guards cash in and out through the night so no one’s post is left uncovered. This one is kinda sweet on one of the guards.”

“Oh, let me guess – Fred?” Evan asked with a grin.

Toby snorted. “Yeah, right. This one doesn’t swing that way – unless you do, coming from a different time stream –“ she suggested, but Mac shook his head emphatically. She grinned back at Evan. “Then it’s Sam. Samantha Sedaris. Mega-hot, let me tell you. I definitely would not mind waking up next to that. But … sexual harassment claims what they are, this one didn’t come on to her at all. Oh, no. He – Prime-he – just stalked her. Like a little lost puppy dog, only without the cuteness.”

“I did not!” Mac protested, downing the mug of coffee and holding it out to her for a refill. “And anyway, how would you know?”

“I review the security footage on a regular basis. Y’know, for fun,” she shrugged with a wicked smile.

“So does that mean Sam knows, too?” he asked, wide-eyed and horrified. “I mean, it wasn’t me-me, but she’ll think it was –“

She looked at him for a long moment, and shook her head. “I don’t think so. You were pretty discreet,” she noted, and snatched the mug out of his hands. “I told you, I’m not your waitress, y’know. Just this once,” Toby warned and walked across the Tank to refuel.

When Toby looked like she was out of easy earshot, Evan gripped his arm and demanded, “Sam? Sam’s alive?”

Mac nodded. “And Bill. Both okay. And Toby’s right – there’s nothing between Sam and me, not the me in this world. But I definitely felt a spark hanging out with her last night. But I’m her boss, I can’t ask her out without risking that sexual harassment thing Toby mentioned.”

“Okay, we’re going to have to figure out what has and hasn’t happened here. And maybe you need a new title. But damn, that’s good news about Sam and Bill.” Evan put out his hand, and Mac clasped it. “Looks like we both might have gotten second chances.”

Toby was back, and shoved the steaming mug into Mac’s outstretched hands. “Now spill. I want to hear about these second chances.”

Mac recounted his perambulations of the night before, concluding with his tale of the marathon poker game. For his own part, Evan tallied another couple of lives in the plus column, and felt another blot on his soul lighten.

&&&

It had taken some convincing, but Dylan finally got Howard to agree to let her go down to the Tank to help out with the anomaly. She’d had to promise she wouldn’t try to accompany Evan and Mac, and she’d stay on the grounds, but at least she’d scored a little more freedom. If this dragged on much longer, though, she and Howard were going to have to have a serious discussion about boundaries.

She found Evan, Toby and Mac conferring by Toby’s computer niche when she finally got down to the Tank.

“Well, look who decided to join us! How’d your evening go?” Evan asked, looking up from calibrating his anomaly detector.

“Beer and pizza with Ken Leeds, breakfast with Howard Kanan. Busiest my social schedule has been since I met you, Cross,” Dylan answered flippantly, noting immediately the … happiness? radiating from Evan. “And how about you? You check out the kitchen in the residence tower?”

He caught her gaze and held it a second, maybe two, a shit-eating grin suddenly taking over his face. “Midnight snack. And breakfast. With Brooke.” He couldn’t contain the delighted chuckle that bubbled up his throat, and Dylan smiled broadly at him.

“Brooke’s alive?” she demanded, stunned. She felt a little dizzy from the news. In that moment, she admitted to herself the tiniest of romantic feelings for Evan Cross, acknowledged them, and buried them. “So that’s what changed,” she added numbly. “I’m happy for you, Evan,” she added, willing her face to smile warmly, taking his hand and squeezing it affectionately.

Could she be mistaken about the wistful look in his eyes, the extra second he held her hand in his, the passing regret that flitted across his face? “Thanks,” was all he said. Imagination, that’s all.

“Yeah, how was that, mate, reuniting after all this time?” Mac asked, incredulous. “And why didn’t you say something earlier – I told you about Sam –“ The coffee was beginning to kick in, but Mac was still in a foul mood.

“Sam’s alive?” Dylan asked, whirling toward Mac. “That’s great!” she added. Turning back to Evan, she prompted, “So?”

Evan raised his right hand to show off his wedding band.

Dylan reached out to touch the ring. “I thought you left this behind, you stopped wearing this months ago, when you and Ange – ah! Alt-Evan didn’t wear it anymore,” Dylan said, understanding dawning. He shook his head, smiling. “I’m really happy for you, Evan,” she said softly, leaning in to kiss him gently on the cheek.

“Yeah, me, too,” he answered, touching the spot where her lips had grazed.

“ _You’re_ Alt-Evan. The asshole who went through the anomaly was Prime,” Toby insisted yet again, spinning in her chair to turn her attention to Dylan.

“No, this Evan came first,” Dylan said seriously, looking at Toby for the first time. She looked no different from the Toby Nance she’d known for the past several months. She was still the lovely and petite woman that Dylan remembered, with long pigtails, trendy t-shirt, stretch jeans, and form-fitting leather jacket. What was different was the expression on Toby’s face, the look in her eyes.

“Hi, I’m Toby,” Toby introduced, standing up and putting out her hand, her eyes locked on Dylan’s and stepping a little closer. “Nice of you to bring me a present, Cross,” she said to Evan without turning her head.

Dylan smiled awkwardly, accepting the proffered hand. “Oh, that’s right – you don’t know me in this timeline.”

“No, but I’d like to. We were friends where you came from? _Good friends_?” 

Yes, Dylan couldn’t miss the suggestive note in Toby’s voice. Another aspect of Toby that was the same. The knowledge gave Dylan a little more hope that everything would work out, although the way that Toby was massaging the base of her thumb while still holding her right hand was beginning to get a little uncomfortable. She placed her left hand over Toby’s and extracted the hand Toby had been playing … handsie? with. Then she pulled the left hand back, rubbing them both together briskly. Evan and Mac both were desperately trying to hold back laughter at her discomfiture and Toby’s oblivious behavior.

“Ah, yes. We were good friends, Toby. But, not …”

“Oh,” Toby replied, gasping slightly and taking a self-conscious step backward. “Sorry,” she added with an impatient shake of her head.

“No worries. I’ll admit I’m flattered,” Dylan answered with a smile. To the guys, she added, “And you two, stop it. Stop imagining!” Both mimicked contrite expressions, and then burst into laughter again. “Great. Heckle and Jeckle. So apparently, I’m dead in this timeline. And that’s why Toby doesn’t know me.”

“Dead?” Evan asked, alarmed. “How? When?” Mac’s expression sobered instantly too.

“Creature incursion, five years ago. So I’m not allowed out in the field yet. But, at least I’m here. So far, at least.”

“But you’re part of the team,” Mac protested. “An important part of the team – how are we gonna know what to do with the creature without you?” 

“Yeah, Mac pulled an all-nighter last night playing poker – with Sam,” Evan added meaningfully, earning a delighted smile from Dylan. “He’s kind of good for nothing,” Evan commented, earning him a sour glance from Mac. “And what do you mean, so far?”

“I was kind of concerned that maybe since the me in this timeline was dead, I’d disappear, too. But Howard thinks –“

“It’s ‘Howard’ now? So that’s how it is?” Evan demanded, an odd expression in his eyes.

“Sure, that’s what he asked me to call him. Can you think of a reason why I shouldn’t?” she asked, capturing his gaze and holding it. Looking for something that might have been there, once.

His mouth worked as though he were trying to form words, once, twice, three times. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I guess not. Sorry. Reflex – Howard and I weren’t friends in the old timeline, not until the very end.” Yeah, whatever spark there might have been, definitely gone. Okay, she could work with that, so long as she knew she had to. Pity, she’d always felt there could have been something special with Evan. But she was truly happy for him. How many people get the chance to recapture love like he had? Well, other than Mac.

Dylan let out a sighing breath. “Good. ‘Cos I have a feeling he and I are going to be working together quite a lot. He thinks I’m stable, but he did say that maybe a genetic scan would confirm that there’s nothing weird going on with me.”

“At a cellular level. Not a bad idea. We might also want to track your quantum signature. But what are we going to do about whatever creature’s come through –“

“Well, it turns out Tony Drake is still around, too, so that’s a good thing. I understand from Howard that he’ll meet you at the scene.” Dylan squeezed Evan’s hand encouragingly and smiled brightly at him. Tony had been Evan’s best friend as well as Dylan’s partner and mentor, and his death at the claws of a Utahraptor had been a terrible blow to them both. It had changed Evan, frozen a piece of his soul. It was one more gift of this new timeline that Tony was still alive – she was really looking forward to seeing her old friend and mentor again. Once she got over the little technicality of being dead. “Now, what can I do _here_?” she gestured to encompass the Tank as a whole. “How can I be useful?”

“You really want to know?” Toby asked, grinning mischievously, and taking a step closer to hip-check Dylan.

“What _work_ can I do?” she asked, chuckling and hip-checking Toby right back. “Since I’m on lockdown. On account of being dead and all,” Dylan said, feigning disappointment.

“You’re gonna milk that, aren’t you,” Evan countered seriously, then grinned.

“A girl’s gotta have some fun, Cross. I can’t leave the building until Leeds gets my identity sorted out. At least I don’t have a guard at my door any more, and I can move around the grounds freely. I’m going to have to sit this one out. But say hi to Tony for me.”

“No! No, no, there’s no ‘hi-ing.’ No, I’m sorry, Miss Weir, er, Dylan,” he added with a shy smile. “Until we get the details sorted, there is no contact with the outside world for you,” Leeds hurried into the main area of the Tank, practically clucking his disapproval of Dylan’s slip. “Backup’s organized, we’re ready to accompany you, Mr. Cross.”

“Whaddyou mean, backup’s organized? We don’t need military escort –“

Howard Kanan came through the doors a few paces behind Leeds, and he shook his head. “Sorry, but you do. No anomaly teams in the field without military backup. That’s the deal.”

“I operate better without interference –“

“No can do. Military backup, or no mission. It’s the deal we made, Evan. Support and cover if needed, in exchange for access to tech.”

For his part, Major Kenneth Leeds stood at ease, simply observing the members of the anomaly team and Howard Kanan as they worked out their relative positions through argument. He had an amused half smile on his face as his eyes darted from one speaker to the other. 

“Howard, this Evan claims _he’s_ Evan-Prime,” Toby complained, glancing toward Evan and back to Howard expectantly. 

Howard thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, he would be.”

“But you discovered the anomalies, developed the original tech –“ she held up an anomaly detector.

“Actually, that’s what Alt-Evan believed. But the fact is _this_ is the guy who introduced me to anomalies. And developed the original anomaly detector.”

Toby looked from Howard to Evan and back again, mouth open in surprise. Finally, she dropped to one knee and offered up the anomaly detector over her head to Evan.

“What the heck are you doing?” Evan demanded, jumping back in alarm.

“I am offering obeisance to the superior geek, my liege.”

“Well, get up – we’ve got work to do.”

She popped up pertly. “Sorry I doubted you.”

“No worries,” he said to Toby, touching her gently on the shoulder. To Howard, he demanded, “Did you _have_ to take credit?”

“It made sense in context,” Howard protested simply. “The past where you-he developed this was gone. Alt-you, Toby, and I did develop the anomaly detection net together, though. I didn’t have access to your original.”

Evan nodded okay. “All right, I guess. But you and I are going to have some conversations about boundaries. We’re partners, right? Ironclad contract? Equal say, equal credit. I’ll take your escort today, but when I get back, we’re gonna have it out, Howard.”

Howard raised his hands and took a step back. “Partners. You got it.”

“Um, anomaly?” Mac reminded. “And if you’re Evan-Prime, does that make me Mac-Prime, or Alt-Mac …?”

“From where I’m standing, you’ll always be Prime,” Dylan told him, hugging his arm.

&&&

“Okay, kids, a few rules of the road,” Howard announced, holding up his hands to encompass them all. “Number one, you don’t duck your military escort.” As Evan started to protest, Howard shouted him down, “I know you, Cross! You say you’ll take the escort, but I know you’re going to try to duck the guard. You can’t. You keep them close, you keep them informed, you take advantage of their support. You don’t know this world – you’re going to need their help. You got it? We can talk more later, but you just promised me – today you accept the escort.”

“Number two, no hitchhikers. There’s a lot of people out on the roads these days, and not all of them are friendly. Keep your distance.”

“What do you mean lot of people on the road?” Dylan asked.

“What do you mean, ‘not friendly’?” Evan added.

“Well, you know how Americans are always threatening to cross the border and move to Canada if they don’t get their way in their elections, referenda, whatever? Well, this time, they did it,” Howard shrugged. “It’ll blow over eventually. In the meantime, we’ve got a bit of a transient problem –“

“Wait,” Evan said. Mac and Dylan’s interest was piqued too, and they all turned toward Howard and took a few steps closer. “Americans are coming over the border?”

“Yeah.” Howard looked at Evan in confusion, and suddenly light dawned. “Oh. _Oh_ – that’s not the way –“

Evan, Mac and Dylan all shook their heads in unison. “Not even close,” Evan told him sourly. “Howard, you disappeared only a few months ago in our timeline – do _you_ remember anything like that happening?”

“Wait, he’s from _your_ timeline –“ Toby demanded.

“Give me a break, Cross. I was living like a hermit – I didn’t even have a working television – I’d cannibalized them all for parts –“

“So you never noticed there _wasn’t_ a flood of angry Americans crossing the border –“

“ _Armed_ angry Americans,” Leeds corrected quietly. “Fleeing what many of them claim is Second Amendment injustice.”

“Armed? They’re _armed_? There are Americans bringing weapons into Canada? How are they getting through Customs?”

“That’s an excellent question, Mr. Cross –“ Leeds responded quietly.

“Evan,” Evan corrected impatiently.

“Evan,” Leeds repeated. “Yes, well, it’s a question Canada Border Services and the RCMP have been trying to answer. The situation has worsened since the assassination. There’s talk of closing the border with the United States, actually. In the meantime, gentlemen, we have an anomaly and a potential threat to the local population?”

“Assassination? Closing the border? Christ! We’re going to have to figure this out, later,” Evan said, frowning. “But for now … okay, let’s mount up. Mac – you ready?” Evan asked, and Mac nodded, grabbed his gear, and started toward the exit. “You got this Toby?”

“I’ll be on comms with any updates. No worries, Evan. Got a new assistant, too,” she added with a cheeky grin. Dylan waggled her fingers in farewell. To Dylan, Toby said, “Now dish – I want to know all about these guys from the ‘other side’. And don’t leave anything out!”

Dylan looked up a little wistfully toward the testosterone-fueled team and saw Ken Leeds smile and wave shyly at her. She tilted her head and returned the gesture then turned back to Toby. “Fine, so long as you tell me everything _you_ know about these guys from this side.”

“Deal! And you can tell me all about you and Evan-Prime, there,” Toby added, pitching her voice so only Dylan could hear. 

Dylan glanced toward Evan and shook her head. “Nothing to tell,” she answered simply. “Good friends, like you and I are going to be.”

“Oooh, promises, promises.” At Dylan’s warning look, she subsided. “Okay. But you know no secrets are safe from me.”

“Right.” Evan started for the door and Leeds and Mac, but paused to grab Howard by the arm as he moved past. “Howard, this isn’t right. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be,” Evan told him urgently.

“I know that _now_. It was like this when I rejoined the time stream. Something happened in the previous six years to trigger this.”

Evan released his grip, and sighed, frowning. “It’s too late to stop it, but we need to figure out how to fix it. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t –“

“I got it Cross.” He pointed to Evan’s wedding band. “Still think I shouldn’t have?”

Evan lifted his hand and looked at the ring, breathed deep through his nostrils, and closed his eyes for a moment. He let out a deep sigh, and drew his hand into a tight fist. “Did you know?”

“Know?”

“Brooke and him, me – my other self. Alt-me. Man, pronouns just don’t cut it anymore,” he said in exasperation. “Did you know the marriage was over?”

“Yeah,” Howard acknowledged quietly. “But that’s a bigger conversation than we have time for now.”

“Humor me – take a minute,” Evan urged.

Howard sighed heavily. “I didn’t get it. When I joined this reality, they were already in separate bedrooms. There was something off – I don’t know. He didn’t want a divorce, but he was stuck in this limbo – they both were.”

“He was like that when you got here?”

“Yeah, I asked him about it, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Told me to butt out.”

“Yeah, sounds like me. Not useful though. So, you’ve been here what, six, seven months?” Howard shook his head, held up five fingers. “Huh. Brooke said they’d been cool about a year, but he got really cold about six months ago.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. I watched my wife die and had my heart ripped out. I knew what you’d gone through losing her. I told him he was crazy for just letting his marriage go. And he was just ready to walk away.”

“Why?”

“How would I know? I asked – he didn’t say. Of course, I don’t think knowing this was going to happen helped much. He got really weird after I told him.”

“Weird,” Evan repeated, raised eyebrows commanding Howard to elucidate.

“Knowing you’re going to just disappear one day kind of kills the spark, takes the fun out of things. Makes it hard to have any hope in the future.”

“Yeah, I guess it would. So he was a dead man walking.” A haunted look passed over Evan’s eyes. “Waiting for oblivion.”

“In a manner of speaking. Got reckless, maybe a little careless. Took risks, bigger ones all the time. Like he was trying to squeeze all the life out before the time stream went south for him."

Evan snorted bitterly. “Yeah, so maybe telling him wasn’t the best idea.”

“No, maybe not. I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought it was important for Brooke to know, and I couldn’t tell her and not him. I didn’t think I was handing him a death sentence, but maybe that’s really what I did. I told him it was coming, but I didn’t tell him or Brooke the date. 

“But we can talk about that later. But look – he was working on something. Something only he knew about it. Half the time I don’t think he even went up to the apartment, just slept in there. In one of the labs. No record of what he did or what he was working on. No record even of what supplies he was using. Blank slate. The labs locks are keyed to his – _your_ DNA.”

“Something he didn’t want you to know about, huh, Howard? Now, why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

“I didn’t have to tell you.”

“Maybe you told me so I’d open the door and you could find out what’s inside. Take control of it.”

“You still don’t trust me,” Howard observed acidly.

“You know, Howard, I just can’t believe you risked your life to safe Brooke’s life just to be a good guy. There’s got to be a catch. Something other than unraveling American culture. Oh and what, triggering the assassination of the American president? What’s that done for the world? Let’s just say we’re in a probationary period, okay?”

Howard glared at Evan for a long moment, then nodded tersely. “Fine.”

An uncomfortable silence formed between them, Evan grinding his teeth in frustration, Howard crossing his arms over his chest and continuing to glare at Evan.

“Evan?” Leeds called out, shattering the disquieting quiet. He and Mac were at the blast doors waiting, and Leeds actually tapped his watch meaningfully.

“Better go,” Howard said. “No one’s better than you at this.”

It was an olive branch, and Evan knew it, and even though he didn’t trust Howard’s motivations, he accepted it as such. “Thanks. Gotta get some more bran into that boy’s diet,” Evan said with a half smile. “Don’t change any further the world while I’m out,” he added to Howard, and started to heft his gear to join up with the others. 

“All right, I’m coming, I’m coming!” Evan started to trot up toward the blast doors when he was interrupted again by his phone ringing. He pulled out the phone and frowned at it. “I guess I have the same number as in our original timeline.” He glanced at the screen, saw the name displayed, and frowned. “Hey, wait up, guys – I gotta take this.” Into the phone, he said, “Cross.”

“Evan?” Connor Temple’s voice asked from the other end. “Evan Cross, is that _really_ you? The Evan who remembers? I mean, _really_?”

“Yeah, Connor, I just found out Howard’s been freezing you out. Look, I’ve taken care of it –”

“Least of our problems, mate. I’ve been trying to get through to you forever. I mean _months_ , Cross. Guess I should have known it wouldn’t really be you until today.”

“Sorry about that. Apparently I’ve just joined up with an alternate timeline, and I’m still getting my bearings. Christ, that sounds even crazier when I say it out loud. What’s up?’

“I was afraid of that, mate. Y’gotta tell me what you did, Evan,” Connor demanded in anguish. “ _What did you bloody do?”_

_End_

**Author's Note:**

> What do _you_ think Alt-Evan was up to? How do you like how this world is shaping up? Could you love Ken Leeds any more than you already do? 
> 
> Please, leave comments!


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